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EREMA; OR, MY FATHER'S SIN
by
R. D. BLACKMORE
1877
CHAPTER I
A LOST LANDMARK
"The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me."
These are the words that have followed me always. This is the
curse which has fallen on my life.
If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not
closed his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the
grave, even if I could have buried and bewailed him duly, the
common business of this world and the universal carelessness might
have led me down the general track that leads to nothing.
Until my father fell and died I never dreamed that he could die. I
knew that his mind was quite made up to see me safe in my new home,
and then himself to start again for still remoter solitudes. And
when his mind was thus made up, who had ever known him fail of it?
If ever a resolute man there was, that very man was my father. And
he showed it now, in this the last and fatal act of his fatal life.
"Captain, here I leave you all," he shouted to the leader of our
wagon train, at a place where a dark, narrow gorge departed from
the moilsome mountain track. "My reasons are my own; let no man
trouble himself about them. All my baggage I leave with you.
I have paid my share of the venture, and shall claim it at
Sacramento. My little girl and I will take this short-cut through
the mountains."
"General!" answered the leader of our train, standing up on his
board in amazement. "Forgive and forget, Sir; forgive and forget.
What is a hot word spoken hotly? If not for your own sake, at
least come back for the sake of your young daughter."
"A fair haven to you!" replied my father. He offered me his hand,
and we were out of sight of all that wearisome, drearisome,
uncompanionable company with whom, for eight long weeks at least,
we had been dragging our rough way. I had known in a moment that
it must be so, for my father never argued. Argument, to his mind,
was a very nice amusement for the weak. My spirits rose as he
swung his bear-skin bag upon his shoulder, and the last sound of
the laboring caravan groaned in the distance, and the fresh air and
the freedom of the mountains moved around us. It was the 29th of
May--Oak-apple Day in England--and to my silly youth this vast
extent of snowy mountains was a nice place for a cool excursion.
Moreover, from day to day I had been in most wretched anxiety, so
long as we remained with people who could not allow for us. My
father, by his calm reserve and dignity and largeness, had always,
among European people, kept himself secluded; but now in this rough
life, so pent in trackless tracts, and pressed together by
perpetual peril, every body's manners had been growing free and
easy. Every man had been compelled to tell, as truly as he could,
the story of his life thus far, to amuse his fellow-creatures--
every man, I mean, of course, except my own poor father. Some told
their stories every evening, until we were quite tired--although
they were never the same twice over; but my father could never be
coaxed to say a syllable more than, "I was born, and I shall die."
This made him very unpopular with the men, though all the women
admired it; and if any rough fellow could have seen a sign of fear,
the speaker would have been insulted. But his manner and the power
of his look were such that, even after ardent spirits, no man saw
fit to be rude to him. Nevertheless, there had always been the
risk of some sad outrage.
"Erema," my father said to me, when the dust from the rear of the
caravan was lost behind a cloud of rocks, and we two stood in the
wilderness alone--"do you know, my own Erema, why I bring you from
them?"
"Father dear, how should I know? You have done it, and it must be
right."
"It is not for their paltry insults. Child, you know what I think
all that. It is for you, my only child, that I am doing what now I
do."
I looked up into his large, sad eyes without a word, in such a way
that he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a
little child instead of a maiden just fifteen. This he had never
done before, and it made me a little frightened. He saw it, and
spoke on the spur of the thought, though still with one arm round
me.
"Perhaps you will live to be thankful, my dear, that you had a
stern, cold father. So will you meet the world all the better;
and, little one, you have a rough world to meet."
For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's
manner; but now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things.
At the time I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled
eagerness.
Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion
of body and spirit afterward. It may have been three days of
wandering, or it may have been a week, or even more than that, for
all that I can say for certain. Whether the time were long or
short, it seemed as if it would never end. My father believed that
he knew the way to the house of an old settler, at the western foot
of the mountains, who had treated him kindly some years before, and
with whom he meant to leave me until he had made arrangements
elsewhere. If we had only gone straightway thither, night-fall
would have found us safe beneath that hospitable roof.
My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought,
in sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it.
Although his will was so very strong, his temper was good about
little things, and he never began to abuse all the world because he
had made a mistake himself.
"Erema," he said, "at this corner where we stand there ought to be
a very large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at
least twice as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa
even. From the plains it can be seen for a hundred miles or more.
It stands higher up the mountainside than any other tree of even
half its size, and that makes it so conspicuous. My eyes must be
failing me, from all this glare; but it must be in sight. Can you
see it now?"
"I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow
tufts; and oh, father, I am so thirsty!"
"Naturally. But now look again. It stands on a ridge, the last
ridge that bars the view of all the lowland. It is a very straight
tree, and regular, like a mighty column, except that on the
northern side the wind from the mountains has torn a gap in it.
Are you sure that you can not see it--a long way off, but
conspicuous?"
"Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a
broomstick. Far or near, I see no tree."
"Then my eyes are better than my memory. We must cast back for a
mile or two; but it can not make much difference."
"Through the dust and the sand?" I began to say; but a glance from
him stopped my murmuring. And the next thing I can call to mind
must have happened a long time afterward.
Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for
mine. I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of
it, being so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct. It
is a fearful thing to think of--now that I can think of it--but to
save my own little worthless life I must have drained every drop of
water from his flat half-gallon jar. The water was hot and the
cork-hole sandy, and I grumbled even while drinking it; and what
must my father (who was dying all the while for a drop, but never
took one)--what must he have thought of me?
But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it
all the worse for me. We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic
district of the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite
early; and of natural springs there was none forth-coming. All we
had to guide us was a little traveler's compass (whose needle stuck
fast on the pivot with sand) and the glaring sun, when he came to
sight behind the hot, dry, driving clouds. The clouds were very
low, and flying almost in our faces, like vultures sweeping down on
us. To me they seemed to shriek over our heads at the others
rushing after them. But my father said that they could make no
sound, and I never contradicted him.
CHAPTER II
A PACIFIC SUNSET
At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth
was visible. For a time--I can not tell how long--we had wholly
lost ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without
getting further. But my father said that we must come right, if we
made up our minds to go long enough. We had been in among all
shapes, and want of shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out
of every thrup and thrum of weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to
find our way out and discover memory of men for us, when all of a
sudden we saw a grand sight. The day had been dreadfully hot and
baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust arising, and driving the
great drought into us. To walk had been worse than to drag one's
way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles. But now the quick
sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the balance
toward the flat places of the land and sea. And suddenly we looked
forth upon an immeasurable spread of these.
We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast
brown patch, disfigures the beauty of the sierra. On either side,
in purple distance, sprang sky-piercing obelisks and vapor-mantled
glaciers, spangled with bright snow, and shodden with eternal
forest. Before us lay the broad, luxuriant plains of California,
checkered with more tints than any other piece of earth can show,
sleeping in alluvial ease, and veined with soft blue waters. And
through a gap in the brown coast range, at twenty leagues of
distance, a light (so faint as to seem a shadow) hovered above the
Pacific.
But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water
gleam. Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to
urge him on toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water.
But, to my surprise, he staggered back, and his face grew as white
as the distant snow. I managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with
the help of his own endeavors, and there let him rest and try to
speak, while my frightened heart throbbed over his.
"My little child," he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten
years, "put your hand where I can feel it."
My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it
was, it moved. But cold fear stopped my talking.
"My child, I have not been kind to you," my father slowly spoke
again, "but it has not been from want of love. Some day you will
see all this, and some day you will pardon me."
He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain,
with the last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing. To
me, I know not how, great awe was every where, and sadness. The
conical point of the furious sun, which like a barb had pierced us,
was broadening into a hazy disk, inefficient, but benevolent.
Underneath him depth of night was waiting to come upward (after
letting him fall through) and stain his track with redness.
Already the arms of darkness grew in readiness to receive him: his
upper arc was pure and keen, but the lower was flaked with
atmosphere; a glow of hazy light soon would follow, and one bright
glimmer (addressed more to the sky than to the earth), and after
that a broad, soft gleam; and after that how many a man should
never see the sun again, and among them would be my father.
He, for the moment, resting there, with heavy light upon him, and
the dark jaws of the mountain desert yawning wide behind him, and
all the beautiful expanse of liberal earth before him--even so he
seemed to me, of all the things in sight, the one that first would
draw attention. His face was full of quiet grandeur and impressive
calm, and the sad tranquillity which comes to those who know what
human life is through continual human death. Although, in the
matter of bodily strength, he was little past the prime of life,
his long and abundant hair was white, and his broad and upright
forehead marked with the meshes of the net of care. But drought
and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to change or weaken
the fine expression of his large, sad eyes. Those eyes alone would
have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep with
settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow. Such eyes
might fitly have told the grief of Adrastus, son of Gordias, who,
having slain his own brother unwitting, unwitting slew the only son
of his generous host and savior.
The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had
made. My father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form
upright against the deepening background. He gazed as if the
course of life lay vanishing below him, while level land and waters
drew the breadth of shadow over them. Then the last gleam flowed
and fled upon the face of ocean, and my father put his dry lips to
my forehead, saying nothing.
His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for
three days; but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and
even tremulous. "Let us run, let us run, my dear father!" I cried.
"Delicious water! The dark falls quickly; but we can get there
before dark. It is all down hill. Oh, do let us run at once!"
"Erema," he answered, with a quiet smile, "there is no cause now
for hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to
do, my child. For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky. We
have escaped from that starving desert at a spot--at a spot where
we can see--"
For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony
seat, and the hand with which he tried to point some distant
landmark fell away. His face, which had been so pale before,
became of a deadly whiteness, and he breathed with gasps of agony.
I knelt before him and took his hands, and tried to rub the palms,
and did whatever I could think of.
"Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every
thing to me! What a brute I was to let you do it! But I did not
know; I never knew! Please God to take me also!"
He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but
he firmly lifted his arm again, and tried to make me follow it.
"What does it matter? Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as
I am! Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you."
"My child! my child!" were his only words; and he kept on saying,
"My child! my child!" as if he liked the sound of it.
At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or
afterward. It may have been before the moon came over the snowy
mountains, or it may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain
repelled the daybreak. All I know is that I ever strove to keep
more near to him through the night, to cherish his failing warmth,
and quicken the slow, laborious, harassed breath. From time to
time he tried to pray to God for me and for himself; but every time
his mind began to wander and to slip away, as if through want of
practice. For the chills of many wretched years had deadened and
benumbed his faith. He knew me, now and then, betwixt the conflict
and the stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and as if
from out a dream,
"Time for Erema to go on her way. Go on your way, and save your
life; save your life, Erema."
There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him. I
took his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing.
I whispered into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to
me; and when he could not speak, I tried to say what he would say
to me.
At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid,
wandering mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to
please and serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in
my weak arms quite dead. And in the anguish of my sobbing, little
things came home to me, a thousand little things that showed how
quietly he had prepared for this, and provided for me only. Cold
despair and self-reproach and strong rebellion dazed me, until I
lay at my father's side, and slept with his dead hand in mine.
There in the desert of desolation pious awe embraced me, and small
phantasms of individual fear could not come nigh me.
By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the
pallid light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from
me. How I arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now.
Such times are not for talking of. How many hearts of anguish lie
forlorn, with none to comfort them, with all the joy of life died
out, and all the fear of having yet to live, in front arising!
Young and weak, and wrong of sex for doing any valiance, long I lay
by my father's body, wringing out my wretchedness. Thirst and
famine now had flown into the opposite extreme; I seemed to loathe
the thought of water, and the smell of food would have made me
sick. I opened my father's knapsack, and a pang of new misery
seized me. There lay nearly all his rations, which he had made
pretense to eat as he gave me mine from time to time. He had
starved himself; since he failed of his mark, and learned our risk
of famishing, all his own food he had kept for me, as well as his
store of water. And I had done nothing but grumble and groan, even
while consuming every thing. Compared with me, the hovering
vultures might be considered angels.
When I found all this, I was a great deal too worn out to cry or
sob. Simply to break down may be the purest mercy that can fall on
truly hopeless misery. Screams of ravenous maws and flaps of fetid
wings came close to me, and, fainting into the arms of death, I
tried to save my father's body by throwing my own over it.
CHAPTER III
A STURDY COLONIST
For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which
my dim eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the
Lord in heaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some
very simple members of humanity.
A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at me
steadfastly. She had seen that, under tender care, I was just
beginning to revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she
had learned to succor all of them. This I knew not then, but felt
that kindness was around me.
"Arauna, arauna, my shild," she said, in a strange but sweet and
soothing voice, "you are with the good man in the safe, good house.
Let old Suan give you the good food, my shild."
"Where is my father? Oh, show me my father?" I whispered faintly,
as she raised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.
"You shall--you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you
when have long Sunday time to think. My shild, take the good food
from poor old Suan."
She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had
been loathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was
now in the quick-reviving agony of starvation. The Indian woman
fed me with far greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with
some soothing process, into another abyss of sleep.
More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life
and death, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or
any thing. No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little
bedroom except this careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to
sleep whenever I wanted to ask questions. Suan Isco, as she was
called, possessed a more than mesmeric power of soothing a weary
frame to rest; and this was seconded, where I lay, by the soft,
incessant cadence and abundant roar of water. Thus every day I
recovered strength and natural impatience.
"The master is coming to see you, shild," Suan said to me one day,
when I had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the
water-fall; "if, if--too much Inglese--old Suan say no more can
now."
"If I am ready and able and willing! Oh, Suan, run and tell him
not to lose one moment."
"No sure; Suan no sure at all," she answered, looking at me calmly,
as if there were centuries yet to spare. "Suan no hurry; shild no
hurry; master no hurry: come last of all."
"I tell you, Suan, I want to see him. And I am not accustomed to
be kept waiting. My dear father insisted always--But oh, Suan,
Suan, he is dead--I am almost sure of it."
"Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for
him. Very good; more good than could be. Suan no more Inglese."
Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow,
helpless pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread
which might have been but a hovering dream. I turned my face to
the wall, and begged her not to send the master in.
But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly,
and turning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at
me. His face was plain and square and solid, with short white
curls on a rugged forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple
chin--fit base for remarkably massive jaws. His frame was in
keeping with his face, being very large and powerful, though not of
my father's commanding height. His dress and appearance were those
of a working--and a really hard-working--man, sober, steadfast, and
self-respecting; but what engaged my attention most was the frank
yet shrewd gaze of deep-set eyes. I speak of things as I observed
them later, for I could not pay much heed just then.
"'Tis a poor little missy," he said, with a gentle tone. "What
things she hath been through! Will you take an old man's hand, my
dear? Your father hath often taken it, though different from his
rank of life. Sampson Gundry is my name, missy. Have you ever
heard your father tell of it?"
"Many and many a time," I said, as I placed my hot little hand in
his. "He never found more than one man true on earth, and it was
you, Sir."
"Come, now," he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at my
warmth of words; "you must not have that in your young head, missy.
It leads to a miserable life. Your father hath always been
unlucky--the most unlucky that ever I did know. And luck cometh
out in nothing clearer than in the kind of folk we meet. But the
Lord in heaven ordereth all. I speak like a poor heathen."
"Oh, never mind that!" I cried: "only tell me, were you in time to
save--to save--" I could not bear to say what I wanted.
"In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you. You must have fought
when you could not fight: the real stuff, I call it. Your poor
father lies where none can harm him. Come, missy, missy, you must
not take on so. It is the best thing that could befall a man so
bound up with calamity. It is what he hath prayed for for many a
year--if only it were not for you. And now you are safe, and for
sure he knows it, if the angels heed their business."
With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me,
knowing that her soothing ways would help me more than argument.
To my mind all things lay in deep confusion and abasement.
Overcome with bodily weakness and with bitter self-reproach, I even
feared that to ask any questions might show want of gratitude. But
a thing of that sort could not always last, and before very long I
was quite at home with the history of Mr. Gundry.
Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in
England, betook himself to the United States in the last year of
the last century. He had always been a most upright man, as well
as a first-rate fisherman; and his family had made a rule--as most
respectable families at that time did--to run a nice cargo of
contraband goods not more than twice in one season. A highly
querulous old lieutenant of the British navy (who had served under
Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept "the rheumatics" in either
stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the Cornish coast-guard;
and he never rested until he had caught all the best county
families smuggling. Through this he lost his situation, and had to
go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused that
(to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior
people, and among them this Solomon Gundry. Now the Gundries had
long been a thickset race, and had furnished some champion
wrestlers; and Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of
obstinacy. He made a bold mark at the foot of a bond for 150
pounds; and with no other sign than that, his partner in their
stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope, of Mevagissey) allowed him to
make sail across the Atlantic with all he cared for.
This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he
did, together with good interest. Solomon Gundry throve among a
thrifty race at Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and
his eldest son was Sampson. Sampson, in the prime of life, and at
its headstrong period, sought the far West, overland, through not
much less of distance, and through even more of danger, than his
English father had gone through. His name was known on the western
side of the mighty chain of mountains before Colonel Fremont was
heard of there, and before there was any gleam of gold on the
lonely sunset frontage.
Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere
Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of. And though
he did not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have
a wife and son, and keep them free from danger. But (as it appears
to me the more, the more I think of every thing) no one must assume
to be aside the reach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so
small that she should not care to strike at him. At any rate, good
or evil powers smote Sampson Gundry heavily.
First he lost his wife, which was a "great denial" to him. She
fell from a cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the
substance of her frame prevented her from ever getting over it.
And after that he lost his son, his only son--for all the Gundries
were particular as to quality; and the way in which he lost his son
made it still more sad for him.
A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a
cattle-place down the same side of the hills. The desire of the
Indians was to enlarge her value and get it. There were very few
white men as yet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry
vowed that, if the will of the Lord went with him, that woman
should come back to her family without robbing them of sixpence.
To this intent he started with a company of some twenty men--white
or black or middle-colored (according to circumstances). He was
their captain, and his son Elijah their lieutenant. Elijah had
only been married for a fortnight, but was full of spirit, and
eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have carried this too
far; for all that came back to his poor bride was a lock of his
hair and his blessing. He was buried in a bed of lava on the
western slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and
was buried by the Blue River.
It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry--thus
cut short--was the finest and noblest young man to be found from
the mountains to the ocean. His father, in whose arms he died, led
a sad and lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although
of Cornish and New England race) to seize the glorious chance of
wealth which lay at his feet beseeching him. By settlement he had
possessed himself of a large and fertile district, sloping from the
mountain-foot along the banks of the swift Blue River, a tributary
of the San Joaquin. And this was not all; for he also claimed the
ownership of the upper valley, the whole of the mountain gorge and
spring head, whence that sparkling water flows. And when that fury
of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men could have done what he
did without even thinking twice of it.
For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own
river, and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations
to pollute it. He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends
to back him; but his fame for stern courage was clear and strong,
and his bodily presence most manifest. Not a shovel was thrust nor
a cradle rocked in the bed of the Blue River.
But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages,
and even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr.
Gundry gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some. For
now his grandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having
lost his mother when he first came into the world, was sure to need
the more natural and maternal nutriment of money.
Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wrought
out a plan which he had long thought of. Nature helped him with
all her powers of mountain, forest, and headlong stream. He set up
a saw-mill, and built it himself; and there was no other to be
found for twelve degrees of latitude and perhaps a score of
longitude.
CHAPTER IV
THE "KING OF THE MOUNTAINS."
If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I
can not express to any other mind a thousandth part of the
gratitude which was and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor
mind toward those who were so good to me. From time to time it is
said (whenever any man with power of speech or fancy gets some
little grievances) that all mankind are simply selfish, miserly,
and miserable. To contradict that saying needs experience even
larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it; and this I can
not have, and therefore only know that I have not found men or
women behave at all according to that view of them.
Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of
loyalty, to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like
every one else) reserved and silent as to my father's history. But
he always treated me as if I belonged to a rank of life quite
different from and much above his own. For instance, it was long
before he would allow me to have my meals at the table of the
household.
But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss,
and loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had
seen so many troubles. He had been here and there in the world so
much, and dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of
his mind was sharpened into caution. But any weak and helpless
person still could get the best of him; and his shrewdness
certainly did not spring from any form of bitterness. He was rough
in his ways sometimes, and could not bear to be contradicted when
he was sure that he was right, which generally happened to him.
But above all things he had one very great peculiarity, to my mind
highly vexatious, because it seemed so unaccountable. Sampson
Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine intellect. He never
showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and indeed he never,
perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings. But as I grew older
and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it always
provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but to
stand as some great axiom.
The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or
"Firm" Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps,
of race or nation almost unknown to themselves. Suan Isco belonged
to a tribe of respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife
of a chief among them, and the mother of several children. But
Klamath Indians, enemies of theirs (who carried off the lady of the
cattle ranch, and afterward shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in their
possession, having murdered her husband and children, and were
using her as a mere beast of burden, when Sampson Gundry fell on
them. He, with his followers, being enraged at the cold-blooded
death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such purpose that
women and children alone were left to hand down their bad
propensities.
But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the
stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief. She was in
such poor condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest
humanity would have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble
of her carriage. But she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and
Sawyer Gundry (as now he was called) knew by this time all the
value of uncultivated gratitude. And her virtues were so many that
it took a long time to find them out, for she never put them
forward, not knowing whether they were good or bad.
Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it
was a continual grief to me to be a burden upon them. But when I
came to understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing
I was ashamed of was my own mistrust of them. Not that I expected
ever that any harm would be done to me, only that I knew myself to
have no claim on any one.
One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble,
Sampson Gundry's grandson "Firm"--as he was called for Ephraim--ran
up the stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.
"Miss Rema, will you come with us?" he said, in his deep, slow
style of speech. "We are going up the mountain, to haul down the
great tree to the mill."
"To be sure I will come," I answered, gladly. "What great tree is
it, Mr. Ephraim?"
"The largest tree any where near here--the one we cut down last
winter. Ten days it took to cut it down. If I could have saved
it, it should have stood. But grandfather did it to prove his
rights. We shall have a rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if
we can tackle it. I thought you might like to see us try."
In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of
the air made cloak or shawl unbearable. But when I ran down to the
yard of the mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and
gave me an order too.
"You must not go like this, my dear. We have three thousand feet
to go upward. The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we
shall be home by night-fall. Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's
cloak, and a pair of thicker boots for change."
Suan Isco never ran. That manner of motion was foreign to her, at
least as we accomplish it. When speed was required, she attained
it by increased length of stride and great vigor of heel. In this
way she conquered distance steadily, and with very little noise.
The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a
sudden joy to me. In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry,
clearing all tangles with a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep
places as if twoscore were struck off his threescore years and
five. From time to time he turned round to laugh, or see that his
men and trained bullocks were right; and then, as his bright eyes
met my dark ones, he seemed to be sorry for the noise he made. On
the other hand, I was ashamed of damping any one's pleasure by
being there.
But I need not have felt any fear about this. Like all other
children, I wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and
behaved as if my state of mind was a thing to be considered. But
the longer we rose through the freedom and the height, the lighter
grew the heart of every one, until the thick forest of pines closed
round us, and we walked in a silence that might be felt.
Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much
trouble with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a
rugged cone, or crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of
a tree. The tree was still there, but not its glory; for, alas!
the mighty trunk lay prostrate--a grander column than ever was or
will be built by human hands. The tapering shaft stretched out of
sight for something like a furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose
over us so that we could not see the mountains. Having never seen
any such tree before, I must have been amazed if I had been old
enough to comprehend it.
Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every
thing, collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-
floor or area of the stump before he would say any thing. Here we
all looked so sadly small that several of the men began to laugh;
the bullocks seemed nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the
branches or the fibres of the tree; and the chains and the
shackles, and the blocks and cranes, and all the rest of the things
they meant to use, seemed nothing whatever, or at all to be
considered, except as a spider's web upon this tree.
The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected
to do, looked blank. Some rubbed their horns into one another's
sadly, and some cocked their tails because they felt that they
could not be called upon to work. The light of the afternoon sun
came glancing along the vast pillar, and lit its dying hues--
cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red, and soft gray where the lichens
grew.
Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little,
having had lately some trouble with his throat. Then in his sturdy
manner he spoke the truth, according to his nature. He set his
great square shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered
himself:
"Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here,
and I own to it. It serves me right for disbelieving what my
grandson, Firm Gundry, said. I knew that the tree was a big one,
of course, as every body else does; but till you see a tree laid
upon earth you get no grip of his girth, no more than you do of a
man till he lieth a corpse. At the time of felling I could not
come anigh him, by reason of an accident; and I had some words with
this boy about it, which kept me away ever since that time. Firm,
you were right, and I was wrong. It was a real shame, now I see
it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.' But, for all that,
being down, we must use him. He shall be sawn into fifty-foot
lengths. And I invite you all to come again, for six or seven good
turns at him."
At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's
manly truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these
visits to the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good.
But before the descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim
did what appeared to me to be a gallant and straightforward thing.
He stood on the chine of the fallen monster, forty feet above us,
having gained the post of vantage by activity and strength, and he
asked if he might say a word or two.
"Say away, lad," cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his
obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson
was going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of
that tree--an act which had roused indignation over a hundred
leagues of lowland.
"Neighbors," said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at
first with diffidence, "we all have to thank you, more than I can
tell, for coming to help us with this job. It was a job which
required to be done for legal reasons which I do not understand,
but no doubt they were good ones. For that we have my grandfather's
word; and no one, I think, will gainsay it. Now, having gone
so far, we will not be beaten by it, or else we shall not be
Americans."
These simple words were received with great applause; and an
orator, standing on the largest stump to be found even in America,
delivered a speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be
repeated. And Mr. Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his
grandson's conduct.
"Firm knoweth the right thing to do," he said; "and like a man he
doeth it. But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see
in the distance yonner? Never mind, my dear, then. Tell me by-
and-by, when none of these folk is 'longside of us."
But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under
pain of his displeasure. I had spied on the sky-line far above us,
in the desert track of mountain, the very gap in which my father
stood and bade me seek this landmark. His memory was true, and his
eyesight also; but the great tree had been felled. The death of
the "King of the Mountains" had led to the death of the king of
mankind, so far as my little world contained one.
CHAPTER V
UNCLE SAM
The influence of the place in which I lived began to grow on me.
The warmth of the climate and the clouds of soft and fertile dust
were broken by the refreshing rush of water and the clear soft
green of leaves. We had fruit trees of almost every kind, from the
peach to the amber cherry, and countless oaks by the side of the
river--not large, but most fantastic. Here I used to sit and
wonder, in a foolish, childish way, whether on earth there was any
other child so strangely placed as I was. Of course there were
thousands far worse off, more desolate and destitute, but was there
any more thickly wrapped in mystery and loneliness?
A wanderer as I had been for years, together with my father, change
of place had not supplied the knowledge which flows from lapse of
time. Faith, and warmth, and trust in others had not been dashed
out of me by any rude blows of the world, as happens with unlucky
children huddled together in large cities. My father had never
allowed me much acquaintance with other children; for six years he
had left me with a community of lay sisters, in a little town of
Languedoc, where I was the only pupil, and where I was to remain as
I was born, a simple heretic. Those sisters were very good to me,
and taught me as much as I could take of secular accomplishment.
And it was a bitter day for me when I left them for America.
For during those six years I had seen my father at long intervals,
and had almost forgotten the earlier days when I was always with
him. I used to be the one little comfort of his perpetual
wanderings, when I was a careless child, and said things to amuse
him. Not that he ever played with me any more than he played with
any thing; but I was the last of his seven children, and he liked
to watch me grow. I never knew it, I never guessed it, until he
gave his life for mine; but, poor little common thing as I was, I
became his only tie to earth. Even to me he was never loving, in
the way some fathers are. He never called me by pet names, nor
dandled me on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my hair and
smiled. Such things I never expected of him, and therefore never
missed them; I did not even know that happy children always have
them.
But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier
children: I had the pleasure of knowing my own name. My name was
an English one--Castlewood--and by birth I was an English girl,
though of England I knew nothing, and at one time spoke and thought
most easily in French. But my longing had always been for England,
and for the sound of English voices and the quietude of English
ways. In the chatter and heat and drought of South France some
faint remembrance of a greener, cooler, and more silent country
seemed to touch me now and then. But where in England I had lived,
or when I had left that country, or whether I had relations there,
and why I was doomed to be a foreign girl--all these questions were
but as curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.
Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about
them) I never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a
roundabout way, such as clever children have, get second-hand
information. In the first place, I was not a clever child; for the
next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no
one near me who knew any thing about me. Like all other girls--and
perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys--I had strong
though hazy ideas of caste. The noble sense of equality,
fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in life than childhood,
which is an age of ambition. I did not know who in the world I
was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.
One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with
the aid of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting
tackle were being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr.
Gundry, being full of the subject, declared that he would have his
dinner in the mill yard. He was anxious to watch, without loss of
time, the settlement of some heavy timbers newly sunk in the
river's bed, to defend the outworks of the mill. Having his good
leave to bring him his pipe, I found him sitting upon a bench with
a level fixed before him, and his empty plate and cup laid by,
among a great litter of tools and things. He was looking along the
level with one eye shut, and the other most sternly intent; but
when I came near he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and made me
think that I was not interrupting him.
"Here is your pipe, Uncle Sam," I said; for, in spite of all his
formal ways, I would not be afraid of him. I had known him now
quite long enough to be sure he was good and kind. And I knew that
the world around these parts was divided into two hemispheres, the
better half being of those who loved, and the baser half made of
those who hated, Sawyer Sampson Gundry.
"What a queer world it is!" said Mr. Gundry, accepting his pipe to
consider that point. "Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years
agone, that your father's daughter would ever have come with a pipe
to light for my father's son?"
"Uncle Sam," I replied, as he slowly began to make those puffs
which seem to be of the highest essence of pleasure, and wisps of
blue smoke flitted through his white eyebrows and among the snowy
curls of hair--"dear Uncle Sam, I am sure that it would be an honor
to a princess to light a pipe for a man like you."
"Miss Rema, I should rather you would talk no nonsense," he
answered, very shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I
had offended him. Not knowing how to assert myself and declare
that I had spoken my honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the
bench and waited for him to speak again to me. But he made believe
to be very busy, and scarcely to know that I was there. I had a
great mind to cry, but resolved not to do it.
"Why, how is this? What's the matter?" he exclaimed at last, when
I had been watching the water so long that I sighed to know where
it was going to. "Why, missy, you look as if you had never a
friend in all the wide world left."
"Then I must look very ungrateful," I said; "for at any rate I have
one, and a good one."
"And don't you know of any one but me, my dear?"
"You and Suan Isco and Firm--those are all I have any knowledge
of."
"'Tis a plenty--to my mind, almost too many. My plan is to be a
good friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me. Rest
you quite satisfied with three, Miss Rema. I have lived a good
many years, and I never had more than three friends worth a puff of
my pipe."
"But one's own relations, Uncle Sam--people quite nearly related to
us: it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know."
"Do I, my dear? Then I wish that I did. Except one's own father
and mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them. My own
brother took a twist against me because I tried to save him from
ruin; and if any man ever wished me ill, he did. And I think that
your father had the same tale to tell. But there! I know nothing
whatever about that."
"Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to
tell me, or rather I demand it. I am old enough now, and I am
certain my dear father would have wished me to know every thing.
Whatever it was, I am sure that he was right; and until I know
that, I shall always be the most miserable of the miserable."
The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning,
and his broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles
of inquiry. He quite forgot his level and his great post in the
river, and tilted back his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on
his big brown arm. "Lord bless me!" he said, "what a young gal you
are! Or, at least, what a young Miss Rema. What good can you do,
miss, by making of a rout? Here you be in as quiet a place as you
could find, and all of us likes and pities you. Your father was a
wise man to settle you here in this enlightened continent. Let the
doggoned old folk t'other side of the world think out their own
flustrations. A female young American you are now, and a very fine
specimen you will grow. 'Tis the finest thing to be on all God's
earth."
"No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an
Englishwoman. The Americans may be more kind and generous, and
perhaps my father thought so, and brought me here for that reason.
And I may be glad to come back to you again when I have done what I
am bound to do. Remember that I am the last of seven children, and
do not even know where the rest are buried."
"Now look straight afore you, missy. What do you see yonner?" The
Sawyer was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long
interruption.
"I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't
even know the names of. Also I see a bright, swift river."
"But over here, missy, between them two oaks. What do you please
to see there, Miss Rema?"
"What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill."
"But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been
at all, if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my
family. Could I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power
and human ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months
of a stretch, except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night after
night, and bending all my intellect over it? And could I have done
that, think you now, if my heart was a-mooning upon family wrongs,
and this, that, and the other?"
Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and
spread his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly
with his deep gray eyes, surveying me in triumph. To his mind,
that mill was the wonder of the world, and any argument based upon
it, with or without coherence, was, like its circular saws,
irresistible. And yet he thought that women can not reason!
However, I did not say another word just then, but gave way to him,
as behooved a child. And not only that, but I always found him too
good to be argued with--too kind, I mean, and large of heart, and
wedded to his own peculiar turns. There was nothing about him that
one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he
always proceeded with such pity for those who were opposed to him
that they always knew they must be wrong, though he was too polite
to tell them so. And he had such a pleasant, paternal way of
looking down into one's little thoughts when he put on his
spectacles, that to say any more was to hazard the risk of
ungrateful inexperience.
CHAPTER VI
A BRITISHER
The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the
mountains, full of light and liveliness. It had scarcely run six
miles from its source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that
space and time it had gathered strong and copious volume. The
lovely blue of the water (like the inner tint of a glacier) was
partly due to its origin, perhaps, and partly to the rich, soft
tone of the granite sand spread under it. Whatever the cause may
have been, the river well deserved its title.
It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it
even seemed to out-vie the tint of the sky which it reflected, and
the myriad sparks of sunshine on it twinkled like a crystal rain.
Plodding through the parched and scorching dust of the mountain-
foot, through the stifling vapor and the blinding, ochreous glare,
the traveler suddenly came upon this cool and calm delight. It was
not to be descried afar, for it lay below the level, and the oaks
and other trees of shelter scarcely topped the narrow comb. There
was no canyon, such as are--and some of them known over all the
world--both to the north and south of it. The Blue River did not
owe its birth to any fierce convulsion, but sparkled on its
cheerful way without impending horrors. Standing here as a child,
and thinking, from the manner of my father, that strong men never
wept nor owned the conquest of emotion, I felt sometimes a fool's
contempt for the gushing transport of brave men. For instance, I
have seen a miner, or a tamer of horses, or a rough fur-hunter, or
(perhaps the bravest of all) a man of science and topography,
jaded, worn, and nearly dead with drought and dearth and choking,
suddenly, and beyond all hope, strike on this buried Eden. And
then he dropped on his knees and spread his starved hands upward,
if he could, and thanked the God who made him, till his head went
round, and who knows what remembrance of loved ones came to him?
And then, if he had any moisture left, he fell to a passion of
weeping.
In childish ignorance I thought that this man weakly degraded
himself, and should have been born a woman. But since that time I
have truly learned that the bravest of men are those who feel their
Maker's Land most softly, and are not ashamed to pay the tribute of
their weakness to Him.
Living, as we did, in a lonely place, and yet not far from a track
along the crest of the great Californian plain from Sacramento
southward, there was scarcely a week which did not bring us some
traveler needing comfort. Mr. Gundry used to be told that if he
would set up a rough hotel, or house of call for cattle-drovers,
miners, loafers, and so on, he might turn twice the money he could
ever make by his thriving saw-mill. But he only used to laugh, and
say that nature had made him too honest for that; and he never
thought of charging any thing for his hospitality, though if a rich
man left a gold piece, or even a nugget, upon a shelf, as happened
very often, Sawyer Gundry did not disdain to set it aside for a
rainy day. And one of his richest or most lavish guests arrived on
my account, perhaps.
It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of
the earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had
crept already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their
summer in our band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food
get short, and to prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having
never felt bitter cold, was trembling at what I heard of it. For
now it was clear that I had no choice but to stay where I was for
the present, and be truly thankful to God and man for having the
chance of doing so. For the little relics of my affairs--so far as
I had any--had taken much time in arrangement, perhaps because it
was so hard to find them. I knew nothing, except about my own
little common wardrobe, and could give no information about the
contents of my father's packages. But these, by dint of
perseverance on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all
rights), had mainly been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the
best that could be done concerning them. Whatever seemed of a
private nature, or likely to prove important, had been brought home
to Blue River Mills; the rest had been sold, and had fetched large
prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.
He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long
afterward, to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar
upon his bounty. I had never been accustomed to think of money,
and felt some little contempt for it--not, indeed, a lofty hatred,
but a careless wonder why it seemed to be always thought of. It
was one of the last things I ever thought of; and those who were
waiting for it were--until I got used to them--obliged in self-duty
to remind me.
This, however, was not my fault. I never dreamed of wronging them.
But I had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any
where, much though I had wandered about, according to vague
recollections. The duty of paying had never been mine; that
important part had been done for me. And my father had such a
horror always of any growth of avarice that he never gave me
sixpence.
And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from
Suan Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be
different from the Old one, and that the gold mines in the
neighborhood must have made them full of it; and once or twice I
asked Uncle Sam; but he only nodded his head, and said that it was
the practice every where. And before very long I began to perceive
that he did not exaggerate.
Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance
above referred to--the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of
bribing even Uncle Sam himself. This happened in the month of
November, when the passes were beginning to be blocked with snow,
and those of the higher mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed
with it. On this particular day the air was laden with gray,
oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy downfall, and instead of
faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I was kept in-doors,
and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache. This is a crushing
weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are obliged to
endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when the
first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it,
overhead. But I was more lucky than most people are; for after
about twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which
the sweetest sound was odious, and the idea of food quite
loathsome, the agony left me, and a great desire for something to
eat succeeded. Suan Isco, the kindest of the kind, was gone down
stairs at last, for which I felt ungrateful gratitude--because she
had been doing her best to charm away my pain by low, monotonous
Indian ditties, which made it ten times worse; and yet I could not
find heart to tell her so.
Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the
November day when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to
lift it. The light of the west had been faint, and was dead;
though often it used to prolong our day by the backward glance of
the ocean. With pangs of youthful hunger, but a head still weak
and dazy, I groped my way in the dark through the passage and down
the stairs of redwood.
At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into
the house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual
cheerful company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were
only two people present. The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of
state, delaying even the indulgence of his pipe, and having his
face set sternly, as I had never before beheld it. In the
visitor's corner, as we called it, where people sat to dry
themselves, there was a man, and only one.
Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them.
The room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality.
Some kind of meal had been made at the table, as always must be in
these parts; but not of the genial, reckless sort which random
travelers carried on without any check from the Sawyer. For he of
all men ever born in a civilized age was the finest host, and a
guest beneath his roof was sacred as a lady to a knight. Hence it
happened that I was much surprised. Proper conduct almost
compelled me to withdraw; but curiosity made me take just one more
little peep, perhaps. Looking back at these things now, I can not
be sure of every thing; and indeed if I could, I must have an
almost supernatural memory. But I remember many things; and the
headache may have cleared my mind.
The stranger who had brought Mr. Gundry's humor into such stiff
condition was sitting in the corner, a nook where light and shadow
made an eddy. He seemed to be perfectly unconcerned about all the
tricks of the hearth flame, presenting as he did a most solid face
for any light to play upon. To me it seemed to be a weather-beaten
face of a bluff and resolute man, the like of which we attribute to
John Bull. At any rate, he was like John Bull in one respect: he
was sturdy and square, and fit to hold his own with any man.
Strangers of this sort had come (as Englishmen rove every where),
and been kindly welcomed by Uncle Sam, who, being of recent English
blood, had a kind of hankering after it, and would almost rather
have such at his board than even a true-born American; and
infinitely more welcome were they than Frenchman, Spaniard, or
German, or any man not to be distinguished, as was the case with
some of them. Even now it was clear that the Sawyer had not
grudged any tokens of honor, for the tall, square, brazen
candlesticks, of Boston make, were on the table, and very little
light they gave. The fire, however, was grandly roaring of stub-
oak and pine antlers, and the black grill of the chimney bricks was
fringed with lifting filaments. It was a rich, ripe light,
affording breadth and play for shadow; and the faces of the two men
glistened, and darkened in their creases.
I was dressed in black, and could not be seen, though I could see
them so clearly; and I doubted whether to pass through, upon my way
to the larder, or return to my room and starve a little longer; for
I did not wish to interrupt, and had no idea of listening. But
suddenly I was compelled to stop; and to listen became an honest
thing, when I knew what was spoken of--or, at any rate, I did it.
"Castlewood, Master Colonist; Castlewood is the name of the man
that I have come to ask about. And you will find it worth your
while to tell me all you know of him." Thus spoke the Englishman
sitting in the corner; and he seemed to be certain of producing his
effect.
"Wal," said Uncle Sam, assuming what all true Britons believe to be
the universal Yankee tone, while I knew that he was laughing in his
sleeve, "Squire, I guess that you may be right. Considerations of
that 'ere kind desarves to be considered of."
"Just so. I knew that you must see it," the stranger continued,
bravely. "A stiff upper lip, as you call it here, is all very well
to begin with. But all you enlightened members of the great
republic know what is what. It will bring you more than ten years'
income of your saw-mill, and farm, and so on, to deal honestly with
me for ten minutes. No more beating about the bush and fencing
with me, as you have done. Now can you see your own interest?"
"I never were reckoned a fool at that. Squire, make tracks, and be
done with it."
"Then, Master Colonist, or Colonel--for I believe you are all
colonels here--your task is very simple. We want clear proof,
sworn properly and attested duly, of the death of a villain--George
Castlewood, otherwise the Honorable George Castlewood, otherwise
Lord Castlewood: a man who murdered his own father ten years ago
this November: a man committed for trial for the crime, but who
bribed his jailers and escaped, and wandered all over the
Continent. What is that noise? Have you got rats?"
"Plenty of foreign rats, and native 'coons, and skunks, and other
varmint. Wal, Squire, go on with it."
The voice of Uncle Sam was stern, and his face full of rising fury,
as I, who had made that noise in my horror, tried to hush my heart
with patience.
"The story is well known," continued the stranger: "we need make no
bones of it. George Castlewood went about under a curse--"
"Not quite so loud, Squire, if you please. My household is not
altogether seasoned."
"And perhaps you have got the young lady somewhere. I heard a
report to that effect. But here you think nothing of a dozen
murders. Now, Gundry, let us have no squeamishness. We only want
justice, and we can pay for it. Ten thousand dollars I am
authorized to offer for a mere act of duty on your part. We have
an extradition treaty. If the man had been alive, we must have had
him. But as he has cheated the hangman by dying, we can only see
his grave and have evidence. And all well-disposed people must
rejoice to have such a quiet end of it. For the family is so well
known, you see."
"I see," Mr. Gundry answered, quietly, laying a finger on his lips.
"Guess you want something more than that, though, Squire. Is there
nothing more than the grave to oblige a noble Britisher with?"
"Yes, Colonel; we want the girl as well. We know that she was with
him in that caravan, or wagon train, or whatever you please to call
it. We know that you have made oath of his death, produced his
child, and obtained his trunks, and drawn his share in the
insurance job. Your laws must be queer to let you do such things.
In England it would have taken at least three years, and cost a
deal more than the things were worth, even without a Chancery suit.
However, of his papers I shall take possession; they can be of no
earthly use to you."
"To be sure. And possession of his darter too, without so much as
a Chancery suit. But what is to satisfy me, Squire, agin goin'
wrong in this little transaction?"
"I can very soon satisfy you," said the stranger, "as to their
identity. Here is their full, particular, and correct description--
names, weights, and colors of the parties."
With a broad grin at his own exquisite wit, the bluff man drew
forth his pocket-book, and took out a paper, which he began to
smooth on his knee quite leisurely. Meanwhile, in my hiding-place,
I was trembling with terror and indignation. The sense of
eavesdropping was wholly lost, in that of my own jeopardy. I must
know what was arranged about me; for I felt such a hatred and fear
of that stranger that sooner than be surrendered to him I would
rush back to my room and jump out of the window, and trust myself
to the trackless forest and the snowy night. I was very nearly
doing so, but just had sense enough to wait and hear what would be
said of me. So I lurked in the darkness, behind the rails, while
the stranger read slowly and pompously.
CHAPTER VII
DISCOMFITURE
The Englishman drew forth a double eyeglass from a red velvet
waistcoat, and mounting it on his broad nose, came nearer to get
the full light of the candles. I saw him as clearly as I could
wish, and, indeed, a great deal too clearly; for the more I saw of
the man, the more I shrank from the thought of being in his power.
Not that he seemed to be brutal or fierce, but selfish, and
resolute, and hard-hearted, and scornful of lofty feelings. Short
dust-colored hair and frizzly whiskers framed his large, thick-
featured face, and wearing no mustache, he showed the clumsy sneer
of a wide, coarse mouth. I watched him with all my eyes, because
of his tone of authority about myself. He might even be my
guardian or my father's nearest relation--though he seemed to be
too ill-bred for that.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel," he went on, in a patronizing
tone, such as he had assumed throughout. "Here it is. Now prick
your ears up, and see if these candid remarks apply. I am reading
from a printed form, you see:
"'George Castlewood is forty-eight years old, but looks perhaps ten
years older. His height is over six feet two, and he does not
stoop or slouch at all. His hair is long and abundant, but white;
his eyes are dark, piercing, and gloomy. His features are fine,
and of Italian cast, but stern, morose, and forbidding, and he
never uses razor. On the back of his left hand, near the wrist,
there is a broad scar. He dresses in half-mourning always, and
never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns all society, and
prefers uncivilized regions. He never stays long in any town, and
follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are military,
as he has been a cavalry officer. From time to time he has been
heard of in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to be in
America.
"'His only surviving child, a girl of about fifteen, has been seen
with him. She is tall and slight and very straight, and speaks
French better than English. Her hair is very nearly black, and her
eyes of unusual size and lustre. She is shy, and appears to have
been kept under, and she has a timid smile. Whether she knows of
her father's crime or not is quite uncertain; but she follows him
like a dog almost.'
"There now, Colonel," cried the Englishman, as he folded the paper
triumphantly; "most of that came from my information, though I
never set eyes upon the child. Does the cap fit or not, Brother
Jonathan?"
Mr. Gundry was leaning back in his own corner, with a favorite
pipe, carved by himself, reposing on his waistcoat. And being thus
appealed to, he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been
dozing, though he never had been more wide awake, as I, who knew
his attitudes, could tell. And my eyes filled with tears of love
and shame, for I knew by the mere turn of his chin that he never
would surrender me.
"Stranger," he said, in a most provoking drawl, "a hard day's work
tells its tale on me, you bet. You do read so bootiful, you read
me hard asleep. And the gutturals of that furrin English is always
a little hard to catch. Mought I trouble you just to go through it
again? You likes the sound of your own voice; and no blame to you,
being such a swate un."
The Englishman looked at him keenly, as if he had some suspicion of
being chaffed; but the face of the Sawyer was so grave and the bend
of his head so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was
asked. But he glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between
the candlesticks; and I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle
Sam, the most hospitable of men, feigned pure incomprehension of
that glance. The man should have no more under that roof.
With a sullen air and a muttered curse, at which Mr. Gundry blew a
wreath of smoke, the stranger unfolded his paper again, and saying,
"Now I beg you to attend this time," read the whole of his
description, with much emphasis, again, while the Sawyer turned
away and beat time upon the hearth, with his white hair, broad
shoulders, and red ears prominent. The Englishman looked very
seriously vexed, but went through his business doggedly. "Are you
satisfied now?" he asked when he had finished.
"Wal, now, Squire," replied Uncle Sam, still keeping up his
provoking drawl, but turning round and looking at the stranger very
steadfastly, "some thin's is so pooty and so ilegantly done, they
seems a'most as good as well-slung flapjacks. A natteral honest
stomick can't nohow have enough of them. Mought I be so bold, in a
silly, mountaneous sort of a way, as to ax for another heerin' of
it?"
"Do you mean to insult me, Sir?" shouted the visitor, leaping up
with a flaming face, and throwing himself into an attitude of
attack.
"Stranger, I mought," answered Mr. Gundry, standing squarely before
him, and keeping his hands contemptuously behind his back--"I
mought so do, barrin' one little point. The cutest commissioner in
all the West would have to report 'Non compos' if his orders was to
diskiver somethin' capable of bein' insulted in a fellow of your
natur'."
With these words Uncle Sam sat down, and powerfully closed his
mouth, signifying that now the matter was taken through every phase
of discussion, and had been thoroughly exhausted. His visitor
stared at him for a moment, as if at some strange phenomenon, and
then fell back into self-command, without attempting bluster.
"Colonel, you are a 'cure,' as we call it on our side of the
herring pond. What have I done to 'riz your dander,' as you
elegantly express it here?"
"Britisher, nothing. You know no better. It takes more than that
to put my back up. But forty years agone I do believe I must 'a
heaved you out o' window."
"Why, Colonel, why? Now be reasonable. Not a word have I said
reflecting either upon you or your country; and a finer offer than
I have made can not come to many of you, even in this land of gold.
Ten thousand dollars I offer, and I will exceed my instructions and
say fifteen, all paid on the nail by an order on Frisco, about
which you may assure yourself. And what do I ask in return? Legal
proof of the death of a man whom we know to be dead, and the
custody of his child, for her own good."
"Squire, I have no other answer to make. If you offered me all the
gold dug in these mountains since they were discovered, I could
only say what I have said before. You came from Sylvester's ranch--
there is time for you to get back ere the snow begins."
"What a hospitable man you are! Upon my word, Gundry, you deserve
to have a medal from our Humane Society. You propose to turn me
out of doors to-night, with a great fall of snow impending?"
"Sir, the fault is entirely your own. What hospitality can you
expect after coming to buy my guest? If you are afraid of the ten-
mile ride, my man at the mill will bed you. But here you must not
sleep, because I might harm you in the morning. I am apt to lose
my temper sometimes, when I go on to think of things."
"Colonel, I think I had better ride back. I fear no man, nor his
temper, nor crotchets. But if I were snowed up at your mill, I
never might cross the hill-foot for months; but from Sylvester's I
can always get to Minto. You refuse, then, to help me in any way?"
"More than that. I will do every thing in my power to confound
you. If any one comes prowling after that young lady, he shall be
shot."
"That is most discouraging. However, you may think better of it.
Write to this address if you do. You have the girl here, of
course?"
"That is her concern and mine. Does your guide know the way right
well! The snow is beginning. You do not know our snows, any more
than you know us."
"Never mind, Mr. Gundry. I shall do very well. You are rough in
your ways, but you mean to do the right; and your indignation is
virtuous. But mark my words upon one little point. If George
Castlewood had been living, I have such credentials that I would
have dragged him back with me in spite of all your bluster. But
over his corpse I have no control, in the present condition of
treaties. Neither can I meddle with his daughter, if it were worth
while to do so. Keep her and make the best of her, my man. You
have taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that is what you
are up for. A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad lot, as her
father was. If you wish the name of Gundry to have its due respect
hereafter, let the heir of the sawmills have nothing to do with the
Honorable Miss Castlewood."
"Let alone, let alone," Uncle Sam said, angrily. "It is well for
you that the 'heir of the saw-mills' hath not heard your insolence.
Firm is a steady lad; but he knoweth well which foot to kick with.
No fear of losing the way to Sylvester's ranch with Firm behind
you. But, meddlesome as you be, and a bitter weed to my
experience, it shall not be said that Sampson Gundry sent forth a
fellow to be frozen. Drink a glass of hot whiskey before you get
to saddle. Not in friendship, mind you, Sir, but in common human
nature."
That execrable man complied, for he began to be doubtful of the
driving snow, now huddling against the window-frames. And so he
went out; and when he was gone, I came forth into the fire-light,
and threw my arms round the Sawyer's neck and kissed him till he
was ashamed of me.
"Miss Rema, my dear, my poor little soul, what makes you carry on
so?"
"Because I have heard every word, Uncle Sam, and I was base enough
to doubt you."
CHAPTER VIII
A DOUBTFUL LOSS
When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite
astonished at the state of things. To look out fairly was
impossible; for not only was all the lower part of the frame
hillocked up like a sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky
plaits, but even in the middle, where some outlook was, it led to
very little. All the air seemed choked with snow, and the ground
coming up in piles to meet it; all sounds were deadened in the
thick gray hush, and nothing had its own proportion. Never having
seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and longed to know more
of it.
Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined,
when I proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open
through the winter.
"It can be done--I am sure it can," I exclaimed, with vigorous
ignorance. "May I do it if I can? It only requires perseverance.
If you keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it.
Don't you see, Uncle Sam?"
"To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff. Suan,
fetch a double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget
while you be up there to give special orders--no snow is to fall at
night or when missy is at dinner."
"You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to
try it. I must try to keep my path to--somewhere."
"What a fool I am, to be sure!" said Mr. Gundry, softly. "There,
now, I beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it.
Firm and I will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it.
Why, the snow is two foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places.
I wonder whether that rogue of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch
last night? No fault of mine if he never did, for go he would in
spite of me."
I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his
name until it was told in this way. My mind was dwelling on my
father's grave, where I used to love to sit and think; and I could
not bear the idea of the cold snow lying over it, with nobody
coming to care for him. Kind hands had borne him down the
mountains (while I lay between life and death) and buried him in
the soft peach orchard, in the soothing sound of the mill-wheel.
Here had been planted above his head a cross of white un-painted
wood, bearing only his initials, and a small "Amen" below them.
With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished
no better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of
pomp. There was no "consecrated ground" within miles and miles of
traveling; but I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears
to hallow it. For often and often, even now, I could not help
giving way and sobbing, when I thought how sad it was that a
strong, commanding, mighty man, of great will and large experience,
should drop in a corner of the world and die, and finally be
thought lucky--when he could think for himself no longer--to obtain
a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his initials, and have a
water-wheel to sing to him. Many a time it set me crying, and made
me long to lie down with him, until I thought of earth-worms.
All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let
me have my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it. But
even with a steam snow-shovel they could not have kept the way
unstopped, such solid masses of the mountain clouds now descended
over us. And never had I been so humored in my foolish wishes: I
was quite ashamed to see the trouble great men took to please me.
"Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm," said the Sawyer, coming in one
day, with clouts of snow in his snowy curls. "Not that I care a
cent for the fellow--and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe.
Still, he might have had time to mend, if his time had been as good
as the room for it. However, no blame rests on us. I told him to
bed down to saw-mill. They Englishmen never know when they are
well off. But the horse got home, they tell me?"
"The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other
horse and man. But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must
have died out in the snow-drift. It is a queer story. We shall
never know the rights."
"How many times did I tell him," the Sawyer replied, without much
discontent, "that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a
night as that? His own way he would have, however; and finer liars
than he could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone,
time upon time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of
things. They take every body else for a liar."
"Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?" I cried. "Is it that dreadful--that
poor man who wanted to carry me away from you?"
"Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth," Mr. Gundry
answered, more roughly than usual. "Leave you all such points to
the Lord. They are not for young ladies to talk about."
"Grandfather, don't you be too hard," said Firm, as he saw me
hurrying away. "Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only
concerning her own affairs. If we refuse to tell her, others
will."
"Very well, then, so be it," the Sawyer replied; for he yielded
more to his grandson than to the rest of the world put together.
"Turn the log up, Firm, and put the pan on. You boys can go on
without victuals all day, but an old man must feed regular. And,
bad as he was, I thank God for sending him on his way home with his
belly full. If ever he turneth up in the snow, that much can be
proved to my account."
Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I
could not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out--not
at the death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so
in going from a hospitable house. Mr. Gundry cared little what any
body said concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the
thought of a whisper against his hospitality would rouse him.
"Find him, Firm, find him," he said, in his deep sad voice, as he
sat down on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily.
"And when he is found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we
gave him his bellyful."
Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of
the neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot,
that he might hurry out again. Then he took his dinner standing,
and without a word went forth to seek.
"Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler," the old man shouted after
him, and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to
show that he heard him. The snow was again falling heavily, and
the afternoon was waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush
of the mighty tail of the great dog Jowler.
"Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!" I cried, in dismay at the
great white waste. "And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead.
Do call him back, or let me run."
Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where
he made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the
butter-beans.
"Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way
from the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground,
and he was hard at work with the loppings?"
"Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody
else could have noticed such a thing at such a distance."
"Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this
house, without stopping, or even letting your head droop down,
although it was a burning hot May morn?"
"Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do!
It was weeks before I could thank him, even. But you must have
seen him do it all."
The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal
of rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an
argument went to his liking. He said nothing more for the present,
but had his dinner, and enjoyed it.
"Supposing now that he did all that," he resumed, about an hour
afterward, "is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his
own self in a snow-drift? He has three men with him, and he is
worth all three, let alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out
forty feet of snow ere now. If that rogue of an Englishman, Goad,
has had the luck to cheat the hangman, and the honor to die in a
Californy snow-drift, you may take my experience for it, missy,
Firm and Jowler will find him, and clear Uncle Sam's reputation."
CHAPTER IX
WATER-SPOUT
If Mr. Gundry was in one way right, he was equally wrong in the
other. Firm came home quite safe and sound, though smothered with
snow and most hungry; but he thought that he should have staid out
all the night, because he had failed of his errand. Jowler also
was full of discontent and trouble of conscience. He knew, when he
kicked up his heels in the snow, that his duty was to find
somebody, and being of Alpine pedigree, and trained to act up to
his ancestry, he now dropped his tail with failure.
"It comes to the same thing," said Sawyer Gundry; "it is foolish to
be so particular. A thousand better men have sunk through being so
pig-headed. We shall find the rogue toward the end of March, or in
April, if the season suits. Firm, eat your supper and shake
yourself."
This was exactly the Sawyer's way--to take things quietly when
convinced that there was no chance to better them. He would always
do his best about the smallest trifle; but after that, be the
matter small or great, he had a smiling face for the end of it.
The winter, with all its weight of sameness and of dreariness, went
at last, and the lovely spring from the soft Pacific found its
gradual way to us. Accustomed as I was to gentler climates and
more easy changes, I lost myself in admiration of this my first
Californian spring. The flowers, the leagues and leagues of
flowers, that burst into color and harmony--purple, yellow, and
delicate lilac, woven with bright crimson threads, and fringed with
emerald-green by the banks, and blue by the course of rivers, while
deepened here and there by wooded shelter and cool places, with the
silver-gray of the soft Pacific waning in far distance, and silken
vapor drawing toward the carding forks of the mountain range; and
over all the never-wearying azure of the limpid sky: child as I
was, and full of little worldly troubles on my own account, these
grand and noble sights enlarged me without any thinking.
The wheat and the maize were grown apace, and beans come into full
blossom, and the peaches swinging in the western breeze were almost
as large as walnuts, and all things in their prime of freshness,
ere the yellow dust arrived, when a sudden melting of snow in some
gully sent a strong flood down our Blue River. The saw-mill
happened to be hard at work; and before the gear could be lifted,
some damage was done to the floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of
the torrent. Uncle Sam was away, and so was Firm; from which,
perhaps, the mischief grew. However, the blame was all put on the
river, and little more was said of it.
The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-
doors, under some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things.
The stream was as pure and bright as ever, hastening down its
gravel-path of fine granite just as usual, except that it had more
volume and a stronger sense of freshness. Only the bent of the
grasses and the swath of the pendulous twigs down stream remained
to show that there must have been some violence quite lately.
All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as
need be, and the clear blue water played around them as if they
were no constraint to it. And none but a practiced eye could see
that the great wheel had been wounded, being undershot, and lifted
now above the power of the current, according to the fine old plan
of locking the door when the horse is gone.
When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief,
Martin, the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth
full of breakfast.
"Show me," I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance,
"where and what the damage is. Is there any strain to the iron-
work?"
"Lor' a mercy, young missus!" he answered, gruffly, being by no
means a polished man, "where did you ever hear of ironwork?
Needles and pins is enough for you. Now don't you go and make no
mischief."
"I have no idea what you mean," I answered. "If you have been
careless, that is no concern of mine."
"Careless, indeed! And the way I works, when others is a-snorin'
in their beds! I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get
more thanks and better wages. That's the way of the world all
over. Come Saturday week, I shall better myself."
"But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better
yourself, unless you go out of the world altogether!" I put this
question to Martin with the earnest simplicity of the young,
meaning no kind of sarcasm, but knowing that scarcely a week went
by without his threatening to "better himself." And they said that
he had done so for seven years or more.
"Don't you be too sharp," he replied, with a grim smile, partly at
himself, perhaps. "If half as I heard about you is true, you'll
want all your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy. And the
Britishers are worse than we be."
"Well, Martin, I am sure you would help me," I said, "if you saw
any person injuring me. But what is it I am not to tell your
master?"
"My master, indeed! Well, you need not tell old Gundry any thing
about what you have seen. It might lead to hard words; and hard
words are not the style of thing I put up with. If any man tries
hard words with me, I knocks him down, up sticks, and makes
tracks."
I could not help smiling at the poor man's talk. Sawyer Gundry
could have taken him with one hand and tossed him over the
undershot wheel.
"You forget that I have not seen any thing," I said, "and
understand nothing but 'needles and pins.' But, for fear of doing
any harm, I will not even say that I have been down here, unless I
am asked about it."
"Miss Remy, you are a good girl, and you shall have the mill some
day. Lord, don't your little great eyes see the job they are a-
doin' of? The finest stroke in all Californy, when the stubborn
old chap takes to quartz-crushing."
All this was beyond me, and I told him so, and we parted good
friends, while he shook his long head and went home to feed many
pappooses. For the strangest thing of all things was, though I
never at that time thought of it, that there was not any one about
this place whom any one could help liking. Martin took as long as
any body to be liked, until one understood him; but after that he
was one of the best, in many ways that can not be described. Also
there was a pair of negroes, simply and sweetly delightful. They
worked all day and they sang all night, though I had not the
pleasure of hearing them; and the more Suan Isco despised them--
because they were black, and she was only brown--the more they made
up to her, not at all because she governed the supply of victuals.
It was childish to have such ideas, though Suan herself could never
get rid of them. The truth, as I came to know afterward, was that
a large, free-hearted, and determined man was at the head of every
thing. Martin was the only one who ever grumbled, and he had
established a long right to do so by never himself being grumbled
at.
"I'll be bound that poor fellow is in a sad way," Mr. Gundry said
at breakfast-time. "He knows how much he is to blame, and I fear
that he won't eat a bit for the day. Martin is a most conscientious
man. He will offer to give up his berth, although it would be his
simple ruin."
I was wise enough not to say a word, though Firm looked at me
keenly. He knew that I had been down at the mill, and expected me
to say something.
"We all must have our little mistakes," continued Sawyer Gundry;
"but I never like to push a man when he feels it. I shall not say
a syllable to Martin; and, Ephraim, you will do the like. When a
fellow sticks well to his work like Martin, never blame him for a
mere accident."
Firm, according to his habit, made no answer when he did not quite
agree. In talking with his own age he might have argued, but he
did not argue with his grandfather.
"I shall just go down and put it right myself. Martin is a poor
hand at repairing. Firm, you go up the gulch, and see if the fresh
has hurt the hurdles. Missy, you may come with me, if you please,
and sketch me at work in the mill-wheel. You have drawn that wheel
such a sight of times, you must know every feather of it better
than the man who made it."
"Uncle Sam, you are too bad," I said. "I have never got it right,
and I never shall."
I did not dare as yet to think what really proved to be true in the
end--that I could not draw the wheel correctly because itself was
incorrect. In spite of all Mr. Gundry's skill and labor and
ingenuity, the wheel was no true circle. The error began in the
hub itself, and increased, of course, with the distance; but still
it worked very well, like many other things that are not perfect.
Having no idea of this as yet, and doubting nothing except my own
perception of "perspective," I sat down once more in my favorite
spot, and waited for the master to appear as an active figure in
the midst of it. The air was particularly bright and clear, even
for that pure climate, and I could even see the blue-winged flies
darting in and out of the oozy floats. But half-way up the
mountains a white cloud was hanging, a cloud that kept on changing
shape. I only observed it as a thing to put in for my background,
because I was fond of trying to tone and touch up my sketches with
French chalks.
Presently I heard a harsh metallic sound and creaking of machinery.
The bites, or clamps, or whatever they are called, were being put
on, to keep the wheel from revolving with the Sawyer's weight.
Martin, the foreman, was grumbling and growling, according to his
habit, and peering through the slot, or channel of stone, in which
the axle worked, and the cheery voice of Mr. Gundry was putting
down his objections. Being much too large to pass through the
slot, Mr. Gundry came round the corner of the building, with a
heavy leathern bag of tools strapped round his neck, and his canvas
breeches girt above his knees. But the foreman staid inside to
hand him the needful material into the wheel.
The Sawyer waded merrily down the shallow blue water, for he was
always like a boy when he was at work, and he waved his little
skull-cap to me, and swung himself up into the wheel, as if he were
nearer seventeen than seventy. And presently I could only see his
legs and arms as he fell to work. Therefore I also fell to work,
with my best attempts at penciling, having been carefully taught
enough of drawing to know that I could not draw. And perhaps I
caught from the old man's presence and the sound of his activity
that strong desire to do my best which he seemed to impart to every
one.
At any rate, I was so engrossed that I scarcely observed the
changing light, except as a hindrance to my work and a trouble to
my distance, till suddenly some great drops fell upon my paper and
upon my hat, and a rush of dark wind almost swept me from the log
upon which I sat. Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young
leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks,
and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the
ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be a
sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and air.
This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to
run away. But the hammer of the Sawyer sounded as I had never
heard it sound. He was much too hard at work to pay any heed to
sky or stream, and the fall of his strokes was dead and hollow, as
if the place resented them.
"Come away, come away," I cried, as I ran and stood on the opposite
bank to him; "there is something quite wrong in the weather, I am
sure. I entreat you to come away at once, Uncle Sam. Every thing
is so strange and odd."
"Why, what's to do now?" asked the Sawyer, coming to my side of the
wheel and looking at me, with his spectacles tilted up, and his
apron wedged in a piece of timber, and his solid figure resting in
the impossibility of hurry. "Missy, don't you make a noise out
there. You can't have your own way always."
"Oh, Uncle Sam, don't talk like that. I am in such a fright about
you. Do come out and look at the mountains."
"I have seen the mountains often enough, and I am up to every trick
of them. There may be a corn or two of rain; no more. My sea-weed
was like tinder. There can't be no heavy storm when it is like
that. Don't you make pretense, missy, to know what is beyond you."
Uncle Sam was so seldom cross that I always felt that he had a
right to be so. And he gave me one of his noble smiles to make up
for the sharpness of his words, and then back he went to his work
again. So I hoped that I was altogether wrong, till a bolt of
lightning, like a blue dagger, fell at my very feet, and a crash of
thunder shook the earth and stunned me. These opened the sluice of
the heavens, and before I could call out I was drenched with rain.
Clinging to a bush, I saw the valley lashed with cloudy blasts, and
a whirling mass of spiral darkness rushing like a giant toward me.
And the hissing and tossing and roaring mixed whatever was in sight
together.
Such terror fell upon me at first that I could not look, and could
scarcely think, but cowered beneath the blaze of lightning as a
singed moth drops and shivers. And a storm of wind struck me from
my hold, so that I fell upon the wet earth. Every moment I
expected to be killed, for I never could be brave in a thunder-
storm, and had not been told much in France of God's protection
around me. And the darts of lightning hissed and crossed like a
blue and red web over me. So I laid hold of a little bent of weed,
and twisted it round my dabbled wrist, and tried to pray to the
Virgin, although I had often been told it was vanity.
Then suddenly wiping my eyes, I beheld a thing which entirely
changed me. A vast, broad wall of brown water, nearly as high as
the mill itself, rushed down with a crest of foam from the
mountains. It seemed to fill up all the valley and to swallow up
all the trees; a whole host of animals fled before it, and birds,
like a volley of bullets, flew by. I lost not a moment in running
away, and climbing a rock and hiding. It was base, ungrateful, and
a nasty thing to do; but I did it almost without thinking. And if
I had staid to cry out, what good could I have done--only to be
swept away?
Now, as far as I can remember any thing out of so much horror, I
must have peeped over the summit of my rock when the head of the
deluge struck the mill. But whether I saw it, or whether I knew it
by any more summary process, such as outruns the eyes sometimes, is
more than I dare presume to say. Whichever way I learned it, it
was thus:
A solid mass of water, much bigger than the mill itself, burst on
it, dashed it to atoms, leaped off with it, and spun away the great
wheel anyhow, like the hoop of a child sent trundling. I heard no
scream or shriek; and, indeed, the bellow of a lion would have been
a mere whisper in the wild roar of the elements. Only, where the
mill had been, there was nothing except a black streak and a boil
in the deluge. Then scores of torn-up trees swept over, as a bush-
harrow jumps on the clods of the field; and the unrelenting flood
cast its wrath, and shone quietly in the lightning.
"Oh, Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam!" I cried. But there was not a sign to
be seen of him; and I thought of his gentle, good, obstinate ways,
and my heart was almost broken. "What a brute--what a wretch I
am!" I kept saying, as if I could have helped it; and my fear of
the lightning was gone, and I stood and raved with scorn and
amazement.
In this misery of confusion it was impossible to think, and
instinct alone could have driven my despair to a desperate venture.
With my soaked clothes sticking between my legs, I ran as hard as
they would go, by a short-cut over a field of corn, to a spot where
the very last bluff or headland jutted into the river. This was a
good mile below the mill according to the bends of channel, but
only a furlong or so from the rock upon which I had taken refuge.
However, the flood was there before me, and the wall of water
dashed on to the plains, with a brindled comb behind it.
Behind it also came all the ruin of the mill that had any floatage,
and bodies of bears and great hogs and cattle, some of them alive,
but the most part dead. A grand black bull tossed back his horns,
and looked at me beseechingly: he had frightened me often in quiet
days, but now I was truly grieved for him. And then on a wattle of
brush-wood I saw the form of a man--the Sawyer.
His white hair draggled in the wild brown flood, and the hollow of
his arms was heaped with froth, and his knotted legs hung helpless.
Senseless he lay on his back, and sometimes the wash of the waves
went over him. His face was livid, but his brave eyes open, and a
heavy weight hung round his neck. I had no time to think, and
deserve no praise, for I knew not what I did. But just as an eddy
swept him near me, I made a desperate leap at him, and clutched at
something that tore my hands, and then I went under the water. My
senses, however, were not yet gone, and my weight on the wattle
stopped it, and I came up gurgling, and flung one arm round a fat,
woolly sheep going by me. The sheep was water-logged, and could
scarcely keep his own poor head from drowning, and he turned his
mild eyes and looked at me, but I could not spare him. He struck
for the shore in forlorn hope, and he towed us in some little.
It is no good for me to pretend to say how things were managed for
us, for of course I could do nothing. But the sheep must have
piloted us to a tree, whose branches swept the torrent. Here I let
him go, and caught fast hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck
there also, for what could my weak arm have done? I remember only
to have felt the ground at last, as the flood was exhausted; and
good people came and found him and me, stretched side by side, upon
rubbish and mud.
CHAPTER X
A NUGGET
In a sacred corner (as soon as ever we could attend to any thing)
we hung up the leathern bag of tools, which had done much more
toward saving the life of Uncle Sam than I did; for this had served
as a kind of kedge, or drag, upon his little craft, retarding it
from the great roll of billows, in which he must have been drowned
outright. And even as it was, he took some days before he was like
himself again.
Firm, who had been at the head of the valley, repairing some broken
hurdles, declared that a water-spout had burst in the bosom of the
mountain gorge where the Blue River has its origin, and the whole
of its power got ponded back by a dam, which the Sawyer himself had
made, at about five furlongs above the mill. Ephraim, being
further up the gulch, and high above the roaring flood, did his
utmost with the keen edge of his eyes to pierce into the mischief;
but it rained so hard, and at the same time blew so violently
around him, that he could see nothing of what went on, but hoped
for the best, with uneasiness.
Now when the Sawyer came round so well as to have a clear mind of
things, and learn that his mill was gone and his business lost, and
himself, at this ripe time of life, almost driven to begin the
world again, it was natural to expect that he ought to indulge in a
good deal of grumbling. Many people came to comfort him, and to
offer him deep condolence and the truest of true sympathy, and
every thing that could be thought of, unless it were a loan of
money. Of that they never thought, because it was such a trifling
matter; and they all had confidence in his power to do any thing
but pay them. They told him that he was a young man still, and
Providence watched over him; in a year or two he would be all the
better for this sad visitation. And he said yes to their excellent
advice, and was very much obliged to them. At the same time it was
clear to me, who watched him like a daughter, that he became heavy
in his mind, and sighed, as these kind friends, one after the
other, enjoyed what he still could do for them, but rode away out
of his gate with too much delicacy to draw purse-strings. Not that
he would have accepted a loan from the heartiest heart of all of
them, only that he would have liked the offer, to understand their
meaning. And several of them were men--as Firm, in his young
indignation, told me--who had been altogether set up in life by the
kindness of Sampson Gundry.
Perhaps the Sawyer, after all his years, had no right to be vexed
by this. But whether he was right or wrong, I am sure that it
preyed upon his mind, though he was too proud to speak of it. He
knew that he was not ruined, although these friends assumed that he
must be; and some of them were quite angry with him because they
had vainly warned him. He could not remember these warnings, yet
he contradicted none of them; and fully believing in the goodness
of the world, he became convinced that he must have been hard in
the days of his prosperity.
No sooner was he able to get about again than he went to San
Francisco to raise money on his house and property for the
rebuilding of the mill. Firm rode with him to escort him back, and
so did Martin, the foreman; for although the times were not so bad
as they used to be some ten years back, in the height of the gold
fever, it still was a highly undesirable thing for a man who was
known to have money about him to ride forth alone from San
Francisco, or even Sacramento town. And having mentioned the
foreman Martin, in justice to him I ought to say that although his
entire loss from the disaster amounted only to a worn-out waistcoat
of the value of about twenty cents, his vehemence in grumbling
could only be equaled by his lofty persistence. By his great
activity in running away and leaving his employer to meet the
brunt, he had saved not only himself, but his wife and children and
goods and chattels. This failed, however, to remove or even
assuage his regret for the waistcoat; and he moaned and threatened
to such good purpose that a speedy subscription was raised, which
must have found him in clothes for the rest of his life, as well as
a silver tea-pot with an inscription about his bravery.
When the three were gone, after strict injunctions from Mr. Gundry,
and his grandson too, that I was on no account to venture beyond
calling distance from the house, for fear of being run away with, I
found the place so sad and lonesome that I scarcely knew what to
do. I had no fear of robbers, though there were plenty in the
neighborhood; for we still had three or four men about, who could
be thoroughly trusted, and who staid with us on half wages rather
than abandon the Sawyer in his trouble. Suan Isco, also, was as
brave as any man, and could shoot well with a rifle. Moreover, the
great dog Jowler was known and dreaded by all his enemies. He
could pull down an Indian, or two half-castes, or three Mexicans,
in about a second; and now he always went about with me, having
formed a sacred friendship.
Uncle Sam had kissed me very warmly when he said "good-by," and
Firm had shown some disposition to follow his example; but much as
I liked and admired Firm, I had my own ideas as to what was
unbecoming, and now in my lonely little walks I began to think
about it. My father's resting-place had not been invaded by the
imperious flood, although a line of driftage, in a zigzag swath,
lay near the mound. This was my favorite spot for thinking, when I
felt perplexed and downcast in my young unaided mind. For although
I have not spoken of my musings very copiously, any one would do me
wrong who fancied that I was indifferent. Through the great
kindness of Mr. Gundry and other good friends around me, I had no
bitter sense as yet of my own dependence and poverty. But the vile
thing I had heard about my father, the horrible slander and wicked
falsehood--for such I was certain it must be--this was continually
in my thoughts, and quite destroyed my cheerfulness. And the worst
of it was that I never could get my host to enter into it.
Whenever I began, his face would change and his manner grow
constrained, and his chief desire always seemed to lead me to some
other subject.
One day, when the heat of the summer came forth, and the peaches
began to blush toward it, and bronze-ribbed figs grew damask-gray
with a globule of sirup in their eyes, and melons and pumpkins
already had curved their fluted stalks with heaviness, and the dust
of the plains was beginning to fly, and the bright spring flowers
were dead more swiftly even than they first were born, I sat with
Suan Isco at my father's cross, and told her to make me cry with
some of all the many sad things she knew. She knew a wondrous
number of things insatiably sad and wild; and the quiet way in
which she told them (not only without any horror, but as if they
were rightly to be expected), also the deep and rather guttural
tone of voice, and the stillness of the form, made it impossible to
help believing verily every word she said.
That there should be in the world such things, so dark, unjust, and
full of woe, was enough to puzzle a child brought up among the
noblest philosophers; whereas I had simply been educated by good
unpretentious women, who had partly retired from the world, but not
to such a depth as to drown all thought of what was left behind
them. These were ready at any time to return upon good opportunity;
and some of them had done so, with many tears, when they came into
property.
"Please to tell me no more now," I said at last to Suan; "my eyes
are so sore they will be quite red, and perhaps Uncle Sam will come
home to-night. I am afraid he has found some trouble with the
money, or he ought to have been at home before. Don't you think
so, Suan?"
"Yes, yes; trouble with the money. Always with the white mans
that."
"Very well. I shall go and look for some money. I had a most
wonderful dream last night. Only I must go quite alone. You had
better go and look to the larder, Suan. If they come, they are
sure to be hungry."
"Yes, yes; the white mans always hungry, sep when thirsty."
The Indian woman, who had in her heart a general contempt for the
white race, save those of our own household, drew her bright-
colored shawl around her, and set off with her peculiar walk. Her
walk was not ungraceful, because it was so purely natural; but it
differed almost as much as the step of a quadruped from what we are
taught. I, with heavy thoughts but careless steps, set off on my
wanderings. I wanted to try to have no set purpose, course, or
consideration, but to go wherever chance should lead me, without
choice, as in my dream. And after many vague turns, and even
closings of rebellious eyes, I found myself, perhaps by the force
of habit, at the ruins of the mill.
I seemed to recognize some resemblance (which is as much as one can
expect) to the scene which had been in my sleep before me. But
sleeping I had seen roaring torrents; waking, I beheld a quiet
stream. The little river, as blue as ever, and shrinking from all
thoughts of wrath, showed nothing in its pure gaze now but a
gladness to refresh and cool. In many nicely sheltered corners it
was full of soft reflection as to the good it had to do; and then,
in silver and golden runnels, on it went to do it. And the happy
voice and many sweetly flashing little glances told that it knew of
the lovely lives beside it, created and comforted by itself.
But I looked at the dark ruin it had wrought, and like a child I
was angry with it for the sake of Uncle Sam. Only the foundations
and the big heavy stones of the mill were left, and the clear
bright water purled around, or made little eddies among them. All
were touched with silvery sound, and soft caressing dimples. But I
looked at the passionate mountains first, to be sure of no more
violence; for if a burned child dreads the fire, one half drowned
may be excused for little faith in water. The mountains in the
sunshine looked as if nothing could move their grandeur, and so I
stepped from stone to stone, in the bed of the placid brightness.
Presently I came to a place where one of the great black piles,
driven in by order of the Sawyer, to serve as a back-stay for his
walls, had been swept by the flood from its vertical sinking, but
had not been swept away. The square tarred post of mountain pine
reclined down stream, and gently nodded to the current's impact.
But overthrown as it was, it could not make its exit and float
away, as all its brethren had done. At this I had wondered before,
and now I went to see what the reason was. By throwing a short
piece of plank from one of the shattered foundations into a nick in
the shoulder of the reclining pile, I managed to get there and sit
upon it, and search for its obstruction.
The water was flowing smoothly toward me, and as clear as crystal,
being scarcely more than a foot in depth. And there, on the upper
verge of the hole, raised by the leverage of the butt from the
granite sand of the river-bed, I saw a great bowlder of rich yellow
light. I was so much amazed that I cried out at once, "Oh! what a
beautiful great yellow fish!" And I shouted to Jowler, who had
found where I was, and followed me, as usual. The great dog was
famous for his love of fishing, and had often brought a fine salmon
forth.
Jowler was always a zealous fellow, and he answered eagerly to my
call by dashing at once into the water, and following the guidance
of my hand. But when he saw what I pointed at, he was bitterly
disappointed, and gave me to understand as much by looking at me
foolishly. "Now don't be a stupid dog," I said; "do what I tell
you immediately. Whatever it is, bring it out, Sir."
Jowler knew that I would be obeyed whenever I called him "Sir;" so
he ducked his great head under the water, and tugged with his teeth
at the object. His back corded up, and his tail grew rigid with
the intensity of his labor, but the task was quite beyond him. He
could not even stir the mighty mass at which he struggled, but he
bit off a little projecting corner, and came to me with it in his
mouth. Then he laid his dripping jaws on my lap, and his ears fell
back, and his tail hung down with utter sense of failure.
I patted his broad intelligent forehead, and wiped his black eyes
with his ears, and took from his lips what he offered to me. Then
I saw that his grinders were framed with gold, as if he had been to
a dentist regardless of expense, and into my hand he dropped a lump
of solid glittering virgin ore. He had not the smallest idea of
having done any thing worthy of human applause; and he put out his
long red tongue and licked his teeth to get rid of uneatable dross,
and gave me a quiet nudge to ask what more I wanted of him.
CHAPTER XI
ROVERS
From Jowler I wanted nothing more. Such matters were too grand for
him. He had beaten the dog of Hercules, who had only brought the
purple dye--a thing requiring skill and art and taste to give it
value. But gold does well without all these, and better in their
absence. From handling many little nuggets, and hearkening to Suan
Isco's tales of treachery, theft, and murder done by white men for
the sake of this, I knew that here I had found enough to cost the
lives of fifty men.
At present, however, I was not possessed with dread so much as I
was with joy, and even a secret exultation, at the power placed in
my hands. For I was too young to moralize or attempt philosophy.
Here I had a knowledge which the wisest of mankind might envy, much
as they despise it when they have no chance of getting it. I
looked at my father's grave, in the shadow of the quiet peach-
trees, and I could not help crying as I thought that this was come
too late for him. Then I called off Jowler, who wished (like a
man) to have another tug at it; and home I ran to tell my news, but
failing of breath, had time to think.
It was lucky enough that this was so, for there might have been the
greatest mischief; and sadly excited as I was, the trouble I had
seen so much of came back to my beating heart and told me to be
careful. But surely there could be no harm in trusting Suan Isco.
However, I looked at her several times, and was not quite so sure
about it. She was wonderfully true and faithful, and scarcely
seemed to concede to gold its paramount rank and influence. But
that might only have been because she had never known the want of
it, or had never seen a lump worth stealing, which I was sure that
this must be; and the unregenerate state of all who have never been
baptized had been impressed on me continually. How could I
mistrust a Christian, and place confidence in an Indian? Therefore
I tried to sleep without telling any one, but was unable.
But, as it happened, my good discovery did not keep me so very long
awake, for on the following day our troop of horsemen returned from
San Francisco. Of course I have done very foolish things once and
again throughout my life, but perhaps I never did any thing more
absurd than during the whole of that day. To begin with, I was up
before the sun, and down at the mill, and along the plank, which I
had removed overnight, but now replaced as my bridge to the pine-
wood pile. Then I gazed with eager desire and fear--which was the
stronger I scarcely knew--for the yellow under-gleam, to show the
safety of my treasure. There it lay, as safe as could be, massive,
grand, and beautiful, with tones of varying richness as the ripples
varied over it. The pale light of the morning breathed a dewy
lustre down the banks; the sun (although unrisen yet) drew furrows
through the mountain gaps; the birds from every hanging tree
addressed the day with melody; the crystal water, purer than
religion's brightest dream, went by; and here among them lay,
unmoved, unthought of, and inanimate, the thing which to a human
being is worth all the rest put together.
This contemplation had upon me an effect so noble that here I
resolved to spend my time, for fear of any robbery. I was afraid
to gaze more than could be helped at this grand sight, lest other
eyes should spy what was going on, and long to share it. And after
hurrying home to breakfast and returning in like haste, I got a
scare, such as I well deserved, for being so extremely foolish.
The carpentry of the mill-wheel had proved so very stanch and
steadfast that even in that raging deluge the whole had held
together. It had been bodily torn from its hold and swept away
down the valley; but somewhere it grounded, as the flood ebbed out,
and a strong team had tugged it back again. And the Sawyer had
vowed that, come what would, his mill should work with the self-
same wheel which he with younger hands had wrought. Now this wheel
(to prevent any warp, and save the dry timber from the sun) was
laid in a little shady cut, where water trickled under it. And
here I had taken up my abode to watch my monster nugget.
I had pulled my shoes and stockings off, and was paddling in the
runnel, sheltered by the deep rim of the wheel, and enjoying the
water. Little fish darted by me, and lovely spotted lizards played
about, and I was almost beginning even to forget my rock of gold.
In self-defense it is right to say that for the gold, on my own
account, I cared as much as I might have done for a fig worm-eaten.
It was for Uncle Sam, and all his dear love, that I watched the
gold, hoping in his sad disaster to restore his fortunes. But
suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid flat in the tributary
brook) I descried across the main river a moving company of
horsemen.
These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party,
for they were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return
by the track across the plains. And they were already so near that
I could see their dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican
rovers, mixed with loose Americans. There are few worse men on the
face of the earth than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they
seem almost always to be in that humor. Therefore, when I saw
their battered sun-hats and baggy slouching boots, I feared that
little ruth, or truth, or mercy dwelt between them.
On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and
held my head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my
wind-tossed hair into small compass. For my blood ran cold at the
many dreadful things that came into my mind. I was sure that they
had not spied me yet, and my overwhelming desire was to decline all
introduction.
I counted fourteen gentlemen, for so they always styled themselves,
and would pistol any man who expressed a contrary opinion.
Fourteen of them rode to the brink of the quiet blue river on the
other side; and there they let their horses drink, and some
dismounted and filled canteens, and some of longer reach stooped
from the saddle and did likewise. But one, who seemed to be the
captain, wanted no water for his rum.
"Cut it short, boys," I heard him say, with a fine South
Californian twang (which, as well as his free swearing, I will
freely omit). "If we mean to have fair play with the gal, now or
never's the time for it: old Sam may come home almost any time."
What miserable cowards! Though there were so many of them, they
really had no heart to face an old man known for courage.
Frightened as I was, perhaps good indignation helped me to flutter
no more, and not faint away, but watch those miscreants steadily.
The horses put down their sandy lips over and over again to drink,
scarcely knowing when they ought to stop, and seemed to get thicker
before my eyes. The dribbling of the water from their mouths
prepared them to begin again, till the riders struck the savage
unroweled spur into their refreshment. At this they jerked their
noses up, and looked at one another to say that they expected it,
and then they lifted their weary legs and began to plash through
the river.
It is a pretty thing to see a skillful horse plod through a stream,
probing with his eyes the depth, and stretching his head before his
feet, and at every step he whisks his tail to tell himself that he
is right. In my agony of observation all these things I heeded,
but only knew that I had done so when I thought long afterward. At
the moment I was in such a fright that my eyes worked better than
my mind. However, even so, I thought of my golden millstone, and
was aware that they crossed below, and could not see it.
They gained the bank upon our side within fifty yards of where I
crouched; and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which
kept me crouching. I counted them again as they leaped the bank
and seemed to look at me. I could see the dark array of eyes, and
could scarcely keep from shrieking. But my throat was dry and made
no sound, and a frightened bird set up a scream, which drew off
their attention.
In perils of later days I often thought of this fear, and almost
felt that the hand of Heaven had been stretched forth on purpose to
help my helplessness.
For the moment, however, I lay as close as if under the hand of the
evil one; and the snorting of the horses passed me, and wicked
laughter of the men. One was telling a horrible tale, and the rest
rejoicing in it; and the bright sun, glowing on their withered
skin, discovered perhaps no viler thing in all the world to shine
upon. One of them even pointed at my mill-wheel with a witty
gibe--at least, perhaps, it was wit to him--about the Sawyer's
misfortune; but the sun was then in his eyes, and my dress was just
of the color of the timber. So on they rode, and the pleasant turf
(having lately received some rain) softly answered to the kneading
of their hoofs as they galloped away to surround the house.
I was just at the very point of rising and running up into the dark
of the valley, when a stroke of arithmetic stopped me. Fourteen
men and fourteen horses I had counted on the other side; on this
side I could not make any more than thirteen of them. I might have
made a mistake; but still I thought I would stop just a minute to
see. And in that minute I saw the other man walking slowly on the
opposite bank. He had tethered his horse, and was left as outpost
to watch and give warning of poor Uncle Sam's return.
At the thought of this, my frightened courage, in some extraordinary
way, came back. I had played an ignoble part thus far, as almost
any girl might have done. But now I resolved that, whatever might
happen, my dear friend and guardian should not be entrapped and
lose his life through my cowardice. We had been expecting him all
the day; and if he should come and fall into an ambush, I only
might survive to tell the tale. I ought to have hurried and warned
the house, as my bitter conscience told me; but now it was much too
late for that. The only amends that I could make was to try and
warn our travelers.
Stooping as low as I could, and watching my time to cross the more
open places when the sentry was looking away from me, I passed up
the winding of the little watercourse, and sheltered in the swampy
thicket which concealed its origin. Hence I could see for miles
over the plain--broad reaches of corn land already turning pale,
mazy river fringed with reed, hamlets scattered among clustering
trees, and that which I chiefly cared to see, the dusty track from
Sacramento.
Whether from ignorance of the country or of Mr. Gundry's plans, the
sentinel had been posted badly. His beat commanded well enough the
course from San Francisco; but that from Sacramento was not equally
clear before him. For a jut of pine forest ran down from the
mountains and cut off a part of his view of it. I had not the
sense or the presence of mind to perceive this great advantage, but
having a plain, quick path before me, forth I set upon it. Of
course if the watchman had seen me, he would have leaped on his
horse and soon caught me; but of that I scarcely even thought, I
was in such confusion.
When I had run perhaps a mile (being at that time very slight, and
of active figure), I saw a cloud of dust, about two miles off,
rising through the bright blue haze. It was rich yellow dust of
the fertile soil, which never seems to cake or clot. Sometimes you
may walk for miles without the smallest fear of sinking, the earth
is so elastic. And yet with a slight exertion you may push a
walking-stick down through it until the handle stops it. My heart
gave a jump: that cloud of dust was a sign of men on horseback.
And who could it be but Uncle Sam and Firm and the foreman Martin?
As soon as it began to show itself, it proved to be these very
three, carelessly lounging on their horses' backs, overcome with
heat and dust and thirst. But when they saw me there all alone
under the fury of the sun, they knew that something must have gone
amiss, and were all wide awake in a moment.
"Well, now," said the Sawyer, when I had told my tale as well as
short breath allowed, "put this thing over your head, my dear, or
you may gain a sun-stroke. I call it too bad of them skunks to
drive you in Californy noon, like this."
"Oh, Uncle Sam, never think of me; think of your house and your
goods and Suan, and all at those bad men's mercy!"
"The old house ain't afire yet," he answered, looking calmly under
his hand in that direction. "And as for Suan, no fear at all. She
knows how to deal with such gallowses; and they will keep her to
cook their dinner. Firm, my lad, let us go and embrace them. They
wouldn't 'a made much bones of shooting us down if we hadn't known
of it, and if they had got miss afore the saddle. But if they
don't give bail, as soon as they see me ride up to my door, my
name's not Sampson Gundry. Only you keep out of the way, Miss
Remy. You go to sleep a bit, that's a dear, in the graywitch
spinny yonder, and wait till you hear Firm sound the horn. And
then come you in to dinner-time; for the Lord is always over you."
I hastened to the place which he pointed out--a beautiful covert of
birch-trees--but to sleep was out of the question, worn out though
I was with haste and heat, and (worst of all) with horror. In a
soft mossy nest, where a breeze from the mountains played with the
in and out ways of the wood, and the murmurous dream of genial
insects now was beginning to drowse upon the air, and the heat of
the sun could almost be seen thrilling through the alleys like a
cicale's drum--here, in the middle of the languid peace, I waited
for the terror of the rifle-crack.
For though Uncle Sam had spoken softly, and made so little of the
peril he would meet, I had seen in his eyes some token of the deep
wrath and strong indignation which had kept all his household and
premises safe. And it seemed a most ominous sign that Firm had
never said a word, but grasped his gun, and slowly got in front of
his grandfather.
CHAPTER XII
GOLD AND GRIEF
It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of
the horn, in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place.
I had heard no report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of
conflict; and certainly the house was not on fire, or else I must
have seen the smoke. For being still in great alarm, I had kept a
very sharp lookout.
Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him. He
carried his bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if
needful. But I was already running toward the house, having made
up my mind to be resolute. Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to
have his company, and hear what had been done.
"Please to let me help you," he said, with a smile. "Why, miss,
you are trembling dreadfully. I assure you there is no cause for
that."
"But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and
every body. Oh, those men did look so horrible!"
"Yes, they always do till you come to know them. But bigger
cowards were never born. If they can take people by surprise, and
shoot them without any danger, it is a splendid treat to them. But
if any one like grandfather meets them face to face in the
daylight, their respect for law and life returns. It is not the
first visit they have paid us. Grandfather kept his temper well.
It was lucky for them that he did."
Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one,
even if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves
that there had been no outbreak. But Firm seemed rather sorry that
they had departed so easily. And knowing that he never bragged, I
began to share his confidence.
"They must be shot, sooner or later," he said, "unless, indeed,
they should be hanged. Their manner of going on is out of date in
these days of settlement. It was all very well ten years ago. But
now we are a civilized State, and the hand of law is over us. I
think we were wrong to let them go. But of course I yield to the
governor. And I think he was afraid for your sake. And to tell
the truth, I may have been the same."
Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite
out of place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on. Before he could
catch me I entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly
with his own long pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.
"They rogues have had all the best of our victuals," he said, as
soon as he had kissed me. "Respectable visitors is my delight, and
welcome to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin
the grain to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers. Suan, you are
burning the fat again."
Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper),
never paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on.
Mr. Gundry knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling,
although it is well to keep them up to their work by a little
grumbling. But when I came to see what broken bits were left for
Suan to deal with, I only wondered that he was not cross.
"Thank God for a better meal than I deserve," he said, when they
all had finished. "Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every
day a'most. Now if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have
it up. We be all in the dumps. But that will never do, my lad."
He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of
the two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar;
while I, who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way,
perceived that something was gone amiss, something more serious and
lasting than the mischief made by the robber troop. Was it that
his long ride had failed, and not a friend could be found to help
him?
When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine,
and Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer
leaned back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled. I
filled his pipe and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak,
well knowing his simple and outspoken heart. But he looked at me
and thanked me kindly, and seemed to be turning some grief in his
mind.
"It ain't for the money," he said at last, talking more to himself
than to me; "the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a
sort of way. But the feelin'--the feelin' is the thing I look at,
and it ought to have been more hearty. Security! Charge on my
land, indeed! And I can run away, but my land must stop behind!
What security did I ask of them? 'Tis enough a'most to make a
rogue of me."
"Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam," I exclaimed, as I came and
sat close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to
smile.
"Why, what was little missy thinking of?" he asked. "How solid she
looks! Why, I never see the like!"
"Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam. You ought to have seen
it fifty times, with every body who loves you. And who can help
loving you, Uncle Sam?"
"Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on
the cross, and the backstroke work. And it may 'a been so, when I
took agin a man. But to bring up all that, with the mill strown
down, is a cowardly thing, to my thinking. And to make no count of
the beadin' I threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and
the turpsy knots, and the clogging of the teeth--'tis a bad bit to
swallow, when the mill is strown."
"But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam. The mill shall be
built again. And I will find the money."
Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head. He could not bear to
tell me how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of
money. "Five thousand dollars you have got put by for me," I
continued, with great importance. "Five thousand dollars from the
sale and the insurance fund. And five thousand dollars must be
five-and-twenty thousand francs. Uncle Sam, you shall have every
farthing of it. And if that won't build the mill again, I have got
my mother's diamonds."
"Five thousand dollars!" cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening
his great gray eyes at me. And then he remembered the tale which
he had told, to make me seem independent. "Oh yes, to be sure, my
dear; now I recollect. To be sure--to be sure--your own five
thousand dollars. But never will I touch one cent of your nice
little fortune; no, not to save my life. After all, I am not so
gone in years but what I can build the mill again myself. The Lord
hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me still with machinery.
And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a job pretty
fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has not
pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me. But
that is all for the best, no doubt. If Ephraim had too much of
brains, he might have contradicted me. And that I could never
abide, God knows, from any green young jackanapes."
"Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something--something very
important!"
"No, my dear, nothing more just now. It has done me good to have a
little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go
and ask whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them
greasers. It was all I could do to keep the boy out of a
difficulty with them. And if they camp any where nigh, it is like
enough he may go hankerin' after them. The grand march of
intellect hathn't managed yet to march old heads upon young
shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the law."
The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though
mild of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from
tales of Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol
of him. And now, when she could not say where he was, but only was
sure that he must be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great
medicine man which she had hung about him), it seemed to me,
according to what I was used to, that in these regions human life
was held a great deal too lightly.
It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is
the duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and
in his way good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite,
and a very good carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly
always listened. But of course he was not to be compared as yet to
his grandfather, the true Sawyer.
When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm,
and the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found
Mr. Gundry in a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about
any trifles. He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways
of Providence, and having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure
that he never could lose Firm. He had taken his glass of hot
whiskey and water, which always made him temperate; and if he felt
any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on them now from a high point
of view.
"I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of
mankind," he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his
breast; "all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far. I ought to
have made more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish
state, when a old man is put about with them. Never you pay no
heed whatever to any harsh words I may have used. All that is a
very bad thing for young folk."
"But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that
they treated you well?"
He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his
thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.
"Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in
disguise to the present time of sight. It will send up the price
of scantlings, and we was getting on too fast with them. By the
time we have built up the mill again we shall have more orders than
we know how to do with. When I come to reckon of it, to me it
appears to be the reasonable thing to feel a lump of grief for the
old mill, and then to set to and build a stronger one. Yes, that
must be about the right thing to do. And we'll have all the
neighbors in when we lay foundations."
"But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may
at any time be washed away again?"
"Never, at any time," he answered, very firmly, gazing through the
door as if he saw the vain endeavor. "That little game can easily
be stopped, for about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank
toward the old track of the river. The biggest waterspout that
ever came down from the mountains could never come anigh the mill,
but go right down the valley. It hath been in my mind to do it
often, and now that I see the need, I will. Firm and I will begin
tomorrow."
"But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam? You said that
all your friends had refused to help you."
"Never mind, my dear. I will help myself. It won't be the first
time, perhaps, in my life."
"But supposing that I could help you, just some little? Supposing
that I had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all
California?"
Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he
did not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had
just picked up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted
my knowledge, very likely, even as to what gold was.
"It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold--here is a piece of
it; just look--and as large, I am sure, as this table. And it may
be as deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the
contrary. Why, it stopped the big pile from coming to the top,
when even you went down the river."
"Well, now, that explains a thing or two," said the Sawyer, smiling
peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation
meant any thing. "Two things have puzzled me about that stump,
and, indeed, I might say three things. Why did he take such a time
to drive? and why would he never stand up like a man? and why
wouldn't he go away when he ought to?"
"Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam. He was
anchored on his gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good
right to be crooked about it, and no power could get him away from
it."
"Hush, my dear, hush! It is not at all good for young people to
let their minds run on so. But this gold looks very good indeed.
Are you sure that it is a fair sample, and that there is any more
of it?"
"How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you
that I saw it with my own eyes? And there must be at least half a
ton of it."
"Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me. And you shall
have all the rest, my dear--that is, if you will spare me a bit,
Miss Remy. It all belongs to you by discovery, according to the
diggers' law. And your eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the
whole of your heart must be running upon it."
"Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world! How I wish
that I had never seen it! It was only for you that I cared about
it--for you, for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it."
Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps. But I did not see it
in that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he
should misunderstand me so. Gold had its usual end, in grief.
Uncle Sam rose up to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say
that perhaps he was harsh because of the treatment he had received
from his friends. He took me in his arms and kissed me; but before
I could leave off sobbing, the crack of a rifle rang through the
house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed out.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SAWYER'S PRAYER
The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree
and stream. Every thing looked of a different form and color from
those of an hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with
color, and cast by snowy mountains, which have stored the purple
adieu of the sun, was filling the air with delicious calm. The
Sawyer ran out with his shirt sleeves shining, so that any sneaking
foe might shoot him; but, with the instinct of a settler, he had
caught up his rifle. I stood beneath a carob-tree, which had been
planted near the porch, and flung fantastic tassels down, like the
ear-rings of a negress. And not having sense enough to do good, I
was only able to be frightened.
Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the
other side of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread,
even thus far off, was plainly Suan Isco's. And then in the
stillness a weary and heavy foot went toiling after it. Before I
could follow, which I longed to do, to learn at once the worst of
it, I saw the figure of a man much nearer, and even within twenty
yards of me, gliding along without any sound. Faint as the light
was, I felt sure that it was not one of our own men, and the barrel
of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black line among silver
leaves. I longed to run forth and stop him, but my courage was not
prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind the trunk of the
carob-tree. Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted villain, he
went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape with
skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he
leaped up and fell flat without a groan. The crack of a rifle came
later than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a
black rock, and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, "Well, now!" as
he generally did when satisfied.
So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady
me; and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see
whether it was possible to help. But the poor man lay beyond
earthly help; he was too dead to palpitate. His life must have
left him in the air, and he could not even have felt his fall.
In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head,
and strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what,
without thinking, laboring only to recall his life.
"Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?" said a stern
voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr.
Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to
him, but was too frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face,
and all his kind desires were gone.
"Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this
earth, till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood.
Captain Pedro, there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the
back. I wish you were alive to taste my boots. Murderer of men
and filthy ravisher of women, miscreant of God, how can I keep from
trampling on you?"
It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely
forget himself. I wanted to think that it must be somebody else,
and not our Uncle Sam. But he looked toward the west, as all men
do when their spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed
that his chin was triple.
Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get
away. The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing,
compared with the face of the old man living. He may not have
meant it, and I hope he never did, but beyond all controversy he
looked barbarous for the moment.
As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing
still, longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the
great awe of death. If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even
moaned, the living man would have lost all reverence in his fury.
But the power of the other world was greater than even revenge
could trample on. He let it lie there, and he stooped his head,
and went away quite softly.
My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this.
The Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the
largest human nature that I had ever met with. And though it was
impossible as yet to think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of
some great ideal, came over me.
Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men
bringing the body of poor Firm. His head and both his arms hung
down, and they wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do,
although they called out to me not to meddle. The body was carried
in, and laid upon three chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then
a light was struck, and a candle brought by somebody or other. And
Suan Isco sat upon the floor, and set up a miserable Indian dirge.
"Stow away that," cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those
two men; "wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your
liking. I felt him try to kick while we carried him along. He
come forth on a arrand of that sort, and he seem to 'a been
disappointed. A very fine young chap I call him, for to try to do
it still, howsomever his mind might be wandering. Missy, keep his
head up."
I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung
upon any sign of life in him. When I look back at these things, I
think that fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable
girl almost into a real woman. But I had no sense of such things
then.
"I tell you he ain't dead," cried Martin; "no more dead than I be.
He feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn
up his eyes. He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble
about his breathing. I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot
through the heart; but he came all round in about six months, and
protected his head with a document. Firm, now, don't you be a
fool. I have had worse things in my family."
Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him. At
any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe,
and a little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes.
And on my sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came
trickling.
"Keep him to that," said Martin, with some carpenter sort of
surgery; "less fear of the life when the blood begins to run.
Don't move him, missy; never mind your arm. It will be the saving
of him."
I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me;
and they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must
have been so. But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm
to his straw mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the
room, and that, perhaps, revived me. I went to the bottom of the
stairs and listened, and then stole up to the landing, and heard
Suan Isco, who had taken the command, speaking cheerfully in her
worst English. Then I hoped for the best, and, without any
knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.
Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven
to do when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the
gleaming river, and saw the water just in time to stop from
stepping into it. Careless about this and every other thing for
the moment, I threw myself on the sod, and listened to the mournful
melody of night. Sundry unknown creatures, which by day keep timid
silence, were sending timid sounds into the darkness, holding quiet
converse with themselves, or it, or one another. And the silvery
murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling sleep of leaves.
I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved
with washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well
content to throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all
things flow past me. But before any thing had found time to flow
far, or the lullaby of night had lulled me, there came to me a
sadder sound than plaintive Nature can produce without her Master's
aid, the saddest sound in all creation--a strong man's wail.
Child as I was--and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as
knowing so little of mankind--I might have been more frightened,
but I could not have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a
lion. For I knew in a moment whose voice it was, and that made it
pierce me tenfold. It was Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to
his God alone, the loss of his last hope on earth. He could not
dream that any other than his Maker (and his Maker's works, if ever
they have any sympathy) listened to the wild outpourings of an aged
but still very natural heart, which had always been proud of
controlling itself. I could see his great frame through a willow-
tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around, and the faint
gleam of fugitive water beyond. He was kneeling toward his
shattered mill, having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and
his white locks shone in the starlight; then, after trying several
times, he managed to pray a little. First (perhaps partly from
habit), he said the prayer of Our Lord pretty firmly, and then he
went on to his own special case, with a doubting whether he should
mention it. But as he went on he gathered courage, or received it
from above, and was able to say what he wanted.
"Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and
shall soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble. But I
never had such trouble as this here before, and I don't think I
ever shall get over it. I have sinned every day of my life, and
not thought of Thee, but of victuals, and money, and stuff; and
nobody knows, but myself and Thou, all the little bad things inside
of me. I cared a deal more to be respectable and get on with my
business than to be prepared for kingdom come. And I have just
been proud about the shooting of a villain, who might 'a gone free
and repented. There is nobody left to me in my old age. Thou hast
taken all of them. Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson, and my
brother who robbed me--the whole of it may have been for my good,
but I have got no good out of it. Show me the way for a little
time, O Lord, to make the best of it; and teach me to bear it like
a man, and not break down at this time of life. Thou knowest what
is right. Please to do it. Amen."
CHAPTER XIV
NOT FAR TO SEEK
In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious,
the Lord alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to
pronounce) for or against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's
prayer. But if sound doctrine can be established by success (as it
always is), Uncle Sam's theology must have been unusually sound;
for it pleased a gracious Power to know what he wanted, and to
grant it.
Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter
years of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with
abstract resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him.
Being so obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but
proved against every one's voice, except his own, his special
blessedness. But this must have been a trial to him, and happily
he was spared from it.
For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks
in anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-
nourished frame got over it. A truly good and learned doctor came
from Sacramento, and we hung upon his words, and found that there
he left us hanging. And this was the wisest thing perhaps that he
could do, because in America medical men are not absurdly expected,
as they are in England, to do any good, but are valued chiefly upon
their power of predicting what they can not help. And this man of
science perceived that he might do harm to himself and his family
by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good to his patient by
predicting rightly. And so he foretold both good and evil, to meet
the intentions of Providence.
He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due,
he saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet,
which, if left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it
was made of pure silver. The Sawyer wished to keep this silver
bullet as a token, but the doctor said that it belonged to him
according to miners' law; and so it came to a moderate argument.
Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according to the bent of all
good men, and reasoning increased their unreason. But the doctor
won--as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been delicate--
because, when reason had been exhausted, he just said this:
"Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words. The true owner is your
grandson. I will put it back where I took it from."
Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad
moments, took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet
heartily. And the medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it
upon his watch chain. And he told the story so often (saying that
another man perhaps might have got it out, but no other man could
have kept it), that among a great race who judge by facts it
doubled his practice immediately.
The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as "Captain Pedro,"
was buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's
reputation that his house was never attacked again; and if any bad
characters were forced by circumstances to come near him, they
never asked for any thing stronger than ginger-beer or lemonade,
and departed very promptly. For as soon as Ephraim Gundry could
give account of his disaster, it was clear that Don Pedro owed his
fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey. Firm had only intended
to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired by his
grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle. This idea had
justly appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at
once set forth with a valuable cowhide whip. Coming thus to the
Rovers' camp, and finding their captain sitting in the shade to
digest his dinner, Firm laid hold of him by the neck, and gave way
to feelings of severity. Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and
being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary view, perceived
that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of his
tongue to it. Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet
knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked
track for it. And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he
must have had it long enough to miss it.
Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned,
if the captain had known when he was well off. Unluckily he had
purloined a bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork
now to rub his stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it
inside. And before very long his ideas of honor, which he had
sense enough to drop when sober, began to come into his eyes again,
and to stir him up to mischief. Hence it was that he followed
Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and appeased his honor by
shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot anyhow.
It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle
Sam's proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost
careless whenever he was looked at. And then he was ashamed of
himself perpetually, if any one went on with it. Nobody tried to
observe him, of course, or remark upon any of his doings, and for
this he would become so grateful that he would long to tell all his
thoughts, and then stop. This must have been a great worry to him,
seeing how open his manner was; and whenever he wanted to hide any
thing, he informed us of that intention. So that we exhorted Firm
every day to come round and restore us to our usual state. This
was the poor fellow's special desire; and often he was angry with
himself, and made himself worse again by declaring that he must be
a milksop to lie there so long. Whereas, it was much more near the
truth that few other men, even in the Western States, would ever
have got over such a wound. I am not learned enough to say exactly
where the damage was, but the doctor called it, I think, the
sternum, and pronounced that "a building-up process" was required,
and must take a long time, if it ever could be done.
It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left
him by day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs.
But he, without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me--a
mere ignorant child. Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and
perhaps I was proud of that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify
it, instead of laboring to remove it, as would have been the more
proper course. And Firm most ungratefully said that my hand was
lighter than poor Suan's, and every thing I did was better done,
according to him, which was shameful on his part, and as untrue as
any thing could be. However, we yielded to him in all things while
he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak things cry to be
the masters of a tall strong man.
Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the
twelvemonth was completed from my father's death. The brightness
of summer and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them,
and while his system was working hard to fortify itself by walling
up, as the learned man had called it. There had been some
difficulties in this process, caused partly, perhaps, by our too
lavish supply of the raw material; and before Firm's gap in his
"sternum" was stopped, the mountains were coming down upon us, as
we always used to say when the snow-line stooped. In some seasons
this is a sharp time of hurry, broken with storms, and capricious,
while men have to slur in the driving weather tasks that should
have been matured long since. But in other years the long descent
into the depth of winter is taken not with a jump like that, but
gently and softly and windingly, with a great many glimpses back at
the summer, and a good deal of leaning on the arm of the sun.
And so it was this time. The autumn and the winter for a fortnight
stood looking quietly at each other. They had quite agreed to
share the hours, to suit the arrangements of the sun. The nights
were starry and fresh and brisk, without any touch of tartness; and
the days were sunny and soft and gentle, without any sense of
languor. It was a lovely scene--blue shadows gliding among golden
light.
The Sawyer came forth, and cried, "What a shame! This makes me
feel quite young again. And yet I have done not a stroke of work.
No excuse; make no excuse. I can do that pretty well for myself.
Praise God for all His mercies. I might do worse, perhaps, than
have a pipe."
Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the
sight of himself. He steadied his steps with one great white hand
upon his grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were
trembling with a sense of gratitude and a fear of tears. And I
stepped behind a red strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for
him almost made me sob.
Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and
convince us that he was not a dead dog yet. He had known
tribulation, as his master had, and had found it a difficult thing
to keep from the shadowy hunting ground of dogs who have lived a
conscientious life. I had wondered at first what his reason could
have been for not coming forward, according to his custom, to meet
that troop of robbers. But his reason, alas! was too cogent to
himself, though nobody else in that dreadful time could pay any
attention to him. The Rovers, well knowing poor Jowler's repute,
and declining the fair mode of testing it, had sent in advance a
very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as much about dogs
as they could ever hope to know about themselves. This rogue
approached faithful Jowler--so we were told long afterward--not in
an upright way, but as if he had been a brother quadruped. And he
took advantage of the dog's unfeigned surprise and interest to
accost him with a piece of kidney containing a powerful poison.
According to all sound analogy, this should have stopped the dear
fellow's earthly tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply
went away to nurse himself up in retirement. Neither man nor dog
can tell what agonies he suffered; and doubtless his tortures of
mind about duty unperformed were the worst of all. These things
are out of human knowledge in its present unsympathetic state.
Enough that poor Jowler came home at last, with his ribs all up and
his tail very low.
Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of
death, we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
The trees above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere
frippery of leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a
surety of having quite enough next spring. Much of the fruity
wealth of autumn still was clustering in our sight, heavily
fetching the arched bough down to lessen the fall, when fall they
must. And against the golden leaves of maple behind the
unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a climbing
Ipomaea. But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing
more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a
quiet roasting job.
This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much
could never tell how clear our spirits were. Nobody made any
"demonstration," or cut any frolicsome capers, or even said any
thing exuberant. The steadfast brooding breed of England, which
despises antics, was present in us all, and strengthened by a soil
whose native growth is peril, chance, and marvel. And so we nodded
at one another, and I ran over and courtesied to Uncle Sam, and he
took me to him.
"You have been a dear good child," he said, as he rose, and looked
over my head at Firm. "My own granddarter, if such there had been,
could not have done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught
I know. There is no picking and choosing among the females, as God
gives them. But he has given you for a blessing and saving to my
old age, my dearie."
"Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!" I cried, desiring like a child to
escape deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm. "You
have promised me ever so long that I should be the first to show
Firm the nugget."
"And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an
hour older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is."
Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream
of mine, and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could
not exist in earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared
his anxiety to see it; and I led him along by his better arm,
faster, perhaps, than he ought to have walked.
In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to
point it; but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing
except the white bed of the river! The blue water flowed very
softly on its way, without a gleam of gold to corrupt it.
"Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!" I exclaimed, in the
saddest of sad dismay. "I dreamed about it first, but it never can
have been a dream throughout. You know that I told you about it,
Uncle Sam, even when you were very busy, and that shows that it
never could have been a dream."
"You told me about it, I remember now," Mr. Gundry answered, dryly;
"but it does not follow that there was such a thing. My dear, you
may have imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to
come, when my good friends had no money to lend. Your heart was so
good that it got into your brain, and you must not be vexed, my
dear child; it has done you good to dream of it."
"I said so all along," Firm observed. "Miss Rema felt that it
ought to be, and so she believed that it must be, there. She is
always so warm and trustful."
"Is that all you are good for?" I cried, with no gratitude for his
compliment. "As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of
gold, and so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought
up. Did you take them all in a dream, Uncle Sam? Come, can you
get over that?"
I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my
feet or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the
Sawyer's ample countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for
he gazed at me with compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as
if he were balancing our abilities.
"Send your dog in, missy," at last he said. "He is more your dog
than mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian. Let him
go and find it if he can."
At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all
four feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty
barkings; and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as
yellow and as big as ever.
"Ha! ha! I never saw a finer thing," shouted Uncle Sam, like a
school-boy. "I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog
wollops the whole of us. I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on
your nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and
if the boy had never come round, there the gold might have waited
the will of the Almighty. It is a big spot, anyhow."
It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make
so light of it--which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as
proud as if I had made it. Not by any means that the Sawyer was
half as careless as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my
sake, having very lofty principles, especially concerning the duty
of the young. Young people were never to have small ideas, so far
as he could help it, particularly upon such matters as Mammon, or
the world, or fashion; and not so very seldom he was obliged to
catch himself up in his talking, when he chanced to be going on and
forgetting that I, who required a higher vein of thought for my
youth, was taking his words downright; and I think that all this
had a great deal to do with his treating all that gold in such an
exemplary manner; for if it had really mattered nothing, what made
him go in the dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel over it?
CHAPTER XV
BROUGHT TO BANK
The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and
kindred by the amount of consideration which he has consistently
given to cash. If money has been the chief object of his life, and
he for its sake has spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be
successful than admiration overpowers all the ill-will he has
caused. He is shrewd, sagacious, long-headed, and great; he has
earned his success, and few men grudge, while many seek to get a
slice of it; but he, as a general rule, declines any premature
distribution, and for this custody of his wealth he is admired all
the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his
banker's a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be
worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side
poured in, all in hot haste, to lend him their last farthing. The
Sawyer was pleased with their kindness, but thought that his
second-best whiskey met the merits of the case. And he was more
particular than usual with his words; for, according to an old
saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has children, and, being
too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all its little ones
at home. Many people, therefore, were longing to seek for the
frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the miners called
them, with a love of preternatural history. But Mr. Gundry allowed
no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of his patriarchal
nugget. And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seeds of
avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in
avoiding that imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the
bed of his great treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced
the whole of it in, and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it;
and then he established Jowler where he could neither be shot nor
poisoned, and kept a man with a double-barreled rifle in the ruin
of the mill, handy to shoot, but not easy to be shot; and this was
a resolute man, being Martin himself, who had now no business. Of
course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temper was, the better
for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great many men; and if
any one had come to console him in his grumbling, never would he
have gone away again.
It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body
ought to do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those
who knew so much better; at the same time I felt that it might have
done no harm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed
of saying so, because the great gold had been found by me, and
although I cared for it scarcely more than for the tag of a boot-
lace, nobody seemed to me able to enter into it quite as I did; and
as soon as Firm's danger and pain grew less, I began to get rather
impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be hurried.
Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind
for me to be there, and he even put the business off, because I
would not come one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account
of its being my father's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the
date, and begged my pardon for proposing it; but he said that we
must not put it off later than the following night, because the
moonlight would be failing, and we durst not have any kind of lamp,
and before the next moon the hard weather might begin. All this
was before the liberal offers of his friends, of which I have
spoken first, although they happened to come after it.
While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the
issue of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to
watch it and to form some opinion of its shape and size; for,
knowing the pile which I had described, he could not help finding
it easily enough; and indeed the great fear was that others might
find it, and come in great force to rob him; but nothing of that
sort had happened, partly because he held his tongue rigidly, and
partly, perhaps, because of the simple precaution which he had
taken.
Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at
least; for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might
have killed him to go into the water, or even to exert himself at
all; and strong as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-
tackle, he alone could never bring that piece of bullion to bank;
so, after much consideration, he resolved to tell Martin of the
mill, as being the most trusty man about the place, as well as the
most surly; but he did not tell him until every thing was ready,
and then he took him straightway to the place.
Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan
Isco, who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to
keep watch, or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an
ordinary man. The night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though
dull in the radiance of the moon) darted, like soft little
shooting-stars, across the still face of shadow, and the flood of
the light of the moon was at its height, submerging every thing.
While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of
attracting any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the
Sawyer rising from a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin
the foreman, and we soon saw that due preparation had been made,
for they took from under some drift-wood (which had prevented us
from observing it) a small movable crane, and fixed it on a
platform of planks which they set up in the river-bed.
"Palefaces eat gold," Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to
satisfy herself. "Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of
one other's ears. Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now."
"Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan," I answered; "as if it were
possible to have enough!"
"For my part," said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the
evening, "I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I
stand here, mischief will come of it. It will break up our
household. I hope it will turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the
face, as those big nuggets do, ninety-nine out of a hundred. I
have had no faith in it all along."
"Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose," I answered, rather
pettishly, for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about
my nugget. "Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have
had great faith in it."
"Can't say, can't say," was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the
silent vein again.
"Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!" cried the Sawyer,
who was splashing for his life in the water. "I've tackled 'un
now. Just tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like.
You can't lift 'un! Lord bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I
know to do that, I guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it.
Don't you be in such a doggoned hurry. Hold hard, can't you?"
For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught
hold of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the
Sawyer swung himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was
orderly. He showed us exactly where to throw our weight, and he
used his own to such good effect that, after some creaking and
groaning, the long horn of the crane rose steadily, and a mass of
dripping sparkles shone in the moonlight over the water.
"Hurrah! what a whale! How the tough ash bends!" cried Uncle Sam,
panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself.
"Martin, lay your chest to it. We'll grass him in two seconds.
Californy never saw a sight like this, I reckon."
There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and
admire it. In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with
his shoulders up and panting. Even a rough resemblance to the head
and the haunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz
shone here and there on the glistening and bossy surface. Some of
us began to feel and handle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with
his heavy boots, made a vicious kick at it, and a few bright
scales, like sparks, flew off.
"Why, what ails the lad?" cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; "what
harm hath the stone ever done to him? To my mind, this here lump
is a proof of the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived
long enough to gainsay? Here this lump hath lain, without changing
color, since creation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when
the Lord laid hand to it. What good to argue agin such facts?
Supposin' the world come out o' nothing, with nobody to fetch it,
or to say a word of orders, how ever could it 'a managed to get a
lump of gold like this in it? They clever fellers is too clever.
Let 'em put all their heads together, and turn out a nugget, and
I'll believe them."
Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow.
He was not long in perceiving this, though we were content to
admire his words without asking him to explain them; so he only
said, "Well, well," and began to try with both hands if he could
heft this lump. He stirred it, and moved it, and raised it a
little, as the glisten of the light upon its roundings showed; but
lift it fairly from the ground he could not, however he might bow
his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it; and, strange to
say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own discomfiture.
"Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-
cap easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years,
and strings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad
is a clear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage. If there's a
pound here, there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay
a thousand dollars. Miss Rema, give a name to him. All the
thundering nuggets has thundering names."
"Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'" I answered, "because he is
the largest and the best of all."
"It shall stand, miss," cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and
seemed to have bettered himself forever. "You could not have given
it a finer name, miss, if you had considered for a century. Uncle
Sam is the name of our glorious race, from the kindness of our
natur'. Every body's uncle we are now, in vartue of superior
knowledge, and freedom, and giving of general advice, and stickin'
to all the world, or all the good of it. Darned if old Sam aren't
the front of creation!"
"Well, well," said the Sawyer, "let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the
dear young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name;
but, for all that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our
glorious race will come and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes."
"Pooh!" cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words
were common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled
gun, and Jowler to keep watch with him. And the next day he told
us that he had spent the night in such a frame of mind from
continual thought that when our pet cow came to drink at daybreak,
it was but the blowing of her breath that saved her from taking a
bullet between her soft tame eyes.
Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things
should continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the
nugget, perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the
neighborhood to it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its
road at the bottom of a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and
Jowler to sit up, and Firm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed
robbers came riding across, with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy
mules--enough to drag off every thing. They had clearly heard of
the golden toad, and desired to know more of him; but Uncle Sam,
with his usual blandness, met these men at the gate of his yard,
and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested a rifle of heavy
metal, with seven revolving chambers. The robbers found out that
they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they had,
and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better it
would be for them. They thought that he had all his men inside,
and they were mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help
us, and Suan Isco, with a great gun cocked. But their curiosity
was such that they could not help asking about the gold; and,
sooner than shoot them, Uncle Sam replied that, upon his honor, the
nugget was gone. And the fame of his word was so well known that
these fellows (none of whom could tell the truth, even at
confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his pardon for
trespassing on his premises. They hoped that he would not say a
word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for
losing his road; and he told them that if they made off at once,
nobody should pursue them; and so they rode off very happily.
CHAPTER XVI
FIRM AND INFIRM
Strange as it may appear, our quiet little home was not yet
disturbed by that great discovery of gold. The Sawyer went up to
the summit of esteem in public opinion; but to himself and to us he
was the same as ever. He worked with his own hard hands and busy
head just as he used to do; for although the mill was still in
ruins, there was plenty of the finer work to do, which always
required hand-labor. And at night he would sit at the end of the
table furthest from the fire-place, with his spectacles on, and his
red cheeks glowing, while he designed the future mill, which was to
be built in the spring, and transcend every mill ever heard,
thought, or dreamed of.
We all looked forward to a quiet winter, snug with warmth and cheer
in-doors, and bright outside with sparkling trees, brisk air, and
frosty appetite, when a foolish idea arose which spoiled the
comfort at least of two of us. Ephraim Gundry found out, or
fancied, that he was entirely filled with love of a very young
maid, who never dreamed of such things, and hated even to hear of
them; and the maid, unluckily, was myself.
During the time of his ailment I had been with him continually,
being only too glad to assuage his pain, or turn his thoughts away
from it. I partly suspected that he had incurred his bitter wound
for my sake; though I never imputed his zeal to more than a young
man's natural wrath at an outrage. But now he left me no longer in
doubt, and made me most uncomfortable. Perhaps I was hard upon
him, and afterward I often thought so, for he was very kind and
gentle; but I was an orphan child, and had no one to advise me in
such matters. I believe that he should have considered this, and
allowed me to grow a little older; but perhaps he himself was too
young as yet and too bashful to know how to manage things. It was
the very evening after his return from Sacramento, and the beauty
of the weather still abode in the soft warm depth around us. In
every tint of rock and tree and playful glass of river a quiet
clearness seemed to lie, and a rich content of color. The grandeur
of the world was such that one could only rest among it, seeking
neither voice nor thought.
Therefore I was more surprised than pleased to hear my name ring
loudly through the echoing hollows, and then to see the bushes
shaken, and an eager form leap out. I did not answer a word, but
sat with a wreath of white bouvardia and small adiantum round my
head, which I had plaited anyhow.
"What a lovely dear you are!" cried Firm, and then he seemed
frightened at his own words.
"I had no idea that you would have finished your dinner so soon as
this, Mr. Firm."
"And you did not want me. You are vexed to see me. Tell the
truth, Miss Rema."
"I always tell the truth," I answered; "and I did not want to be
disturbed just now. I have so many things to think of."
"And not me among them. Oh no, of course you never think of me,
Erema."
"It is very unkind of you to say that," I answered, looking clearly
at him, as a child looks at a man. "And it is not true, I assure
you, Firm. Whenever I have thought of dear Uncle Sam, I very often
go on to think of you, because he is so fond of you."
"But not for my own sake, Erema; you never think of me for my own
sake."
"But yes, I do, I assure you, Mr. Firm; I do greatly. There is
scarcely a day that I do not remember how hungry you are, and I
think of you."
"Tush!" replied Firm, with a lofty gaze. "Even for a moment that
does not in any way express my meaning. My mind is very much above
all eating when it dwells upon you, Erema. I have always been fond
of you, Erema."
"You have always been good to me, Firm," I said, as I managed to
get a great branch between us. "After your grandfather, and Suan
Isco, and Jowler, I think that I like you best of almost any body
left to me. And you know that I never forget your slippers."
"Erema, you drive me almost wild by never understanding me. Now
will you just listen to a little common-sense? You know that I am
not romantic."
"Yes, Firm; yes, I know that you never did any thing wrong in any
way."
"You would like me better if I did. What an extraordinary thing it
is! Oh, Erema, I beg your pardon."
He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the
much quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me--
that I had applied them to my father, of whom I was always
thinking, though I scarcely ever spoke of him. But I knew that
Firm had meant no harm, and I gave him my hand, though I could not
speak.
"My darling," he said, "you are very dear to me--dearer than all
the world besides. I will not worry you any more. Only say that
you do not hate me."
"How could I? How could any body? Now let us go in and attend to
Uncle Sam. He thinks of every body before himself."
"And I think of every body after myself. Is that what you mean,
Erema?"
"To be sure! if you like. You may put any meaning on my words that
you think proper. I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I
pay no attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am
right."
"I see," replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose
in deep contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most.
"I see how it is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is
right, and the whole of the rest of the world quite wrong. Well,
after all, there is nothing like holding a first-rate opinion of
one's self."
"You are not what I thought of you," I cried, being vexed beyond
bearance by such words, and feeling their gross injustice. "If you
wish to say any thing more, please to leave it until you recover
your temper. I am not quite accustomed to rudeness."
With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and
partly in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked
back, being well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on
his hands, and my heart had a little ache for him.
However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful.
I could not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very
often. But I took good care not to look at him again unless he
said something that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help
it. He was sharp enough very soon to find out this; and then he
did a thing which was most unfair, as I found out long afterward.
He bought an American jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me,
and these he committed to heart, and brought them out as his own
productions. If I had only known it, I must have been exceedingly
sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to laugh and rub his hands,
perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when Uncle Sam laughed,
there was nobody near who could help laughing with him. And so I
began to think Firm the most witty and pleasant of men, though I
tried to look away.
But perhaps the most careful and delicate of things was to see how
Uncle Sam went on. I could not understand him at all just then,
and thought him quite changed from my old Uncle Sam; but afterward,
when I came to know, his behavior was as clear and shallow as the
water of his own river. He had very strange ideas about what he
generally called "the female kind." According to his ideas (and
perhaps they were not so unusual among mankind, especially
settlers), all "females" were of a good but weak and consistently
inconsistent sort. The surest way to make them do whatever their
betters wanted, was to make them think that it was not wanted, but
was hedged with obstacles beyond their power to overcome, and so to
provoke and tantalize them to set their hearts upon doing it. In
accordance with this idea (than which there can be none more
mistaken), he took the greatest pains to keep me from having a word
to say to Firm; and even went so far as to hint, with winks and
nods of pleasantry, that his grandson's heart was set upon the
pretty Miss Sylvester, the daughter of a man who owned a herd of
pigs, much too near our saw-mills, and herself a young woman of
outrageous dress, and in a larger light contemptible. But when
Mr. Gundry, without any words, conveyed this piece of news to
me, I immediately felt quite a liking for gaudy but harmless
Pennsylvania--for so her parents had named her when she was too
young to help it; and I heartily hoped that she might suit Firm,
which she seemed all the more likely to do as his conduct could not
be called noble. Upon that point, however, I said not a word,
leaving him purely to judge for himself, and feeling it a great
relief that now he could not say any thing more to me. I was glad
that his taste was so easily pleased, and I told Suan Isco how glad
I was.
This I had better have left unsaid, for it led to a great
explosion, and drove me away from the place altogether before the
new mill was finished, and before I should otherwise have gone from
friends who were so good to me; not that I could have staid there
much longer, even if this had never come to pass; for week by week
and month by month I was growing more uneasy: uneasy not at my
obligations or dependence upon mere friends (for they managed that
so kindly that I seemed to confer the favor), but from my own sense
of lagging far behind my duty.
For now the bright air, and the wholesome food, and the pleasure of
goodness around me, were making me grow, without knowledge or
notice, into a tall and not altogether to be overlooked young
woman. I was exceedingly shy about this, and blushed if any one
spoke of it; but yet in my heart I felt it was so; and how could I
help it? And when people said, as rough people will, and even
Uncle Sam sometimes, "Handsome is as handsome does," or "Beauty is
only skin-deep," and so on, I made it my duty not to be put out,
but to bear it in mind and be thankful. And though I had no idea
of any such influence at the moment, I hope that the grandeur of
nature around and the lofty style of every thing may have saved me
from dwelling too much on myself, as Pennsylvania Sylvester did.
Now the more I felt my grown-up age and health and buoyant vigor,
the surer I knew that the time was come for me to do some good with
them; not to benefit the world in general, in a large and scattery
way (as many young people set out to do, and never get any
further), but to right the wrong of my own house, and bring home
justice to my own heart. This may be thought a partial and paltry
object to set out with; and it is not for me to say otherwise. At
the time, it occurred to me in no other light except as my due
business, and I never took any large view at all. But even now I
do believe (though not yet in pickle of wisdom) that if every body,
in its own little space and among its own little movements, will
only do and take nothing without pure taste of the salt of justice,
no reeking atrocity of national crimes could ever taint the heaven.
Such questions, however, become me not. I have only to deal with
very little things, sometimes too slim to handle well, and too hazy
to be woven; and if they seem below my sense and dignity to treat
of, I can only say that they seemed very big at the time when I had
to encounter them.
For instance, what could be more important, in a little world of
life, than for Uncle Sam to be put out, and dare even to think ill
of me? Yet this he did; and it shows how shallow are all those
theories of the other sex which men are so pleased to indulge in.
Scarcely any thing could be more ridiculous from first to last,
when calmly and truly considered, than the firm belief which no
power of reason could for the time root out of him.
Uncle Sam, the dearest of all mankind to me, and the very kindest,
was positively low-enough to believe, in his sad opinion of the
female race, that my young head was turned because of the wealth to
which I had no claim, except through his own justice. He had
insisted at first that the whole of that great nugget belonged to
me by right of sole discovery. I asked him whether, if any
stranger had found it, it would have been considered his, and
whether he would have allowed a "greaser," upon finding, to make
off with it. At the thought of this, Mr. Gundry gave a little
grunt, and could not go so far as to maintain that view of it. But
he said that my reasoning did not fit; that I was not a greaser,
but a settled inhabitant of the place, and entitled to all a
settler's rights; that the bed of the river would have been his
grave but for the risk of my life, and therefore whatever I found
in the bed of the river belonged to me, and me only.
In argument he was so much stronger than I could ever attempt to be
that I gave it up, and could only say that if he argued forever it
could never make any difference. He did not argue forever, but
only grew obstinate and unpleasant, so that I yielded at last to
own the half share of the bullion.
Very well. Every body would have thought, who has not studied the
nature of men or been dragged through it heavily, that now there
could be no more trouble between two people entirely trusting each
other, and only anxious that the other should have the best of it.
Yet, instead of that being the case, the mischief, the myriad
mischief, of money set in, until I heartily wished sometimes that
my miserable self was down in the hole which the pelf had left
behind it.
For what did Uncle Sam take into his head (which was full of
generosity and large ideas, so loosely packed that little ones grew
between them, especially about womankind)--what else did he really
seem to think, with the downright stubbornness of all his thoughts,
but that I, his poor debtor and pensioner and penniless dependent,
was so set up and elated by this sudden access of fortune that
henceforth none of the sawing race was high enough for me to think
of? It took me a long time to believe that so fair and just a man
ever could set such interpretation upon me. And when it became too
plain that he did so, truly I know not whether grief or anger was
uppermost in my troubled heart.
CHAPTER XVII
HARD AND SOFT
Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down
upon Miss Sylvester with a large contempt. But while this raised
my opinion of his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great
relief--the relief of supposing that he wished his grandson to
marry this Pennsylvania. For although her father, with his pigs
and cattle, and a low sort of hostelry which he kept, could settle
"a good pile of dollars" upon her, and had kept her at the
"learnedest ladies' college" even in San Francisco till he himself
trembled at her erudition, still it was scarcely to be believed
that a man of the Sawyer's strong common-sense and disregard of
finery would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made of
affectation, vulgarity, and conceit. And one day, quite in the
early spring, he was so much vexed with the fine lady's airs that
he left no doubt about his meaning.
Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback;
and having been brought up, perhaps as a child, to ride after pigs
and so on, she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a
graceful style of horsemanship. And now she dashed through thick
and thin in a most commanding manner, caring no more for a snow-
drift than ladies do for a scraping of the road. No one with the
least observation could doubt that this young woman was extremely
anxious to attract Firm Gundry's notice; and therefore, on the day
above spoken of, once more she rode over, with her poor father in
waiting upon her as usual.
Now I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has
never been my practice; but this is the honest and earnest truth,
that no smallness of mind, or narrowness of feeling, or want of
large or fine sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in
the house. I simply refused, after seeing her once, to have any
thing more to say to her; by no means because of my birth and
breeding (which are things that can be most easily waived when the
difference is acknowledged), nor yet on account of my being brought
up in the company of ladies, nor even by reason of any dislike
which her bold brown eyes put into me. My cause was sufficient and
just and wise. I felt myself here as a very young girl, in safe
and pure and honest hands, yet thrown on my own discretion, without
any feminine guidance whatever. And I had learned enough from the
wise French sisters to know at a glance that Miss Sylvester was not
a young woman who would do me good.
Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me,
so far as a man can understand, and so far as his simple shrewdness
went, in spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal
welcome, though he said not a word (as on such a point he was quite
right in doing)--even he, as I knew by his manner, was quite
content with my decision. But Firm, being young and in many ways
stupid, made a little grievance of it. And, of course, Miss
Sylvester made a great one.
"Oh, I do declare, I am going away," through my open window I heard
her exclaim in her sweetly affected tone, at the end of that long
visit, "without even having the honor of saying a kind word to your
young visitor. Do not wait for me, papa; I must pay my devoirs.
Such a distinguished and travelled person can hardly be afflicted
with mauvaise honte. Why does she not rush to embrace me? All the
French people do; and she is so French! Let me see her, for the
sake of my accent."
"We don't want no French here, ma'am," replied Uncle Sam, as
Sylvester rode off, "and the young lady wants no Doctor Hunt. Her
health is as good as your own, and you never catch no French
actions from her. If she wanted to see you, she would 'a come
down."
"Oh, now, this is too barbarous! Colonel Gundry, you are the most
tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat. Every body says
so, but I never would believe it. Oh, don't let me go away with
that impression. And you do look so good-natured!"
"And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight."
The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and
rustiest saw. The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea
what to make of him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show
her figure as she reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed
her tan gauntlet with crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam
to revolve his rudeness, with the dash of the wet road scattered in
the air.
"I wouldn't 'a spoke to her so course," he said to Firm, who now
returned from opening the gate and delivering his farewell, "if she
wasn't herself so extra particular, gild me, and sky-blue my
mouldings fine. How my mother would 'a stared at the sight of such
a gal! Keep free of her, my lad, keep free of her. But no harm to
put her on, to keep our missy alive and awake, my boy."
Immediately I withdrew from ear-shot, more deeply mortified than I
can tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice by not waiting for
his answer. I knew not then how lightly men will speak of such
delicate subjects; and it set me more against all thoughts of Firm
than a month's reflection could have done. When I came to know
more of the world, I saw that I had been very foolish. At the
time, however, I was firmly set in a strong resolve to do that
which alone seemed right, or even possible--to quit with all speed
a place which could no longer be suited for me.
For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while
equally I condemned myself for having so little courage. But it
was not as if there were any body to help me, or tell me what to
do; sometimes I was bold with a surety of right, and then again I
shook with the fear of being wrong. Because, through the whole of
it, I felt how wonderfully well I had been treated, and what a
great debt I owed of kindness; and it seemed to be only a nasty
little pride which made me so particular. And being so unable to
settle for myself, I waited for something to settle it.
Something came, in a way which I had not by any means expected. I
had told Suan Isco how glad I was that Firm had fixed his liking
steadily upon Miss Sylvester. If any woman on earth could be
trusted not to say a thing again, that one was this good Indian.
Not only because of her provident habits, but also in right of the
difficulty which encompassed her in our language. But she managed
to get over both of these, and to let Mr. Ephraim know, as cleverly
as if she had lived in drawing-rooms, whatever I had said about
him. She did it for the best; but it put him in a rage, which he
came at once to have out with me.
"And so, Miss Erema," he said, throwing down his hat upon the table
of the little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman
ballads, "I have your best wishes, then, have I, for a happy
marriage with Miss Sylvester?"
I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush
on his cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy
tread, showed plainly that his mind was a little out of balance.
He deserved it, however, and I could not grieve.
"You have my best wishes," I replied, demurely, "for any state of
life to which you may be called. You could scarcely expect any
less of me than that."
"How kind you are! But do you really wish that I should marry old
Sylvester's girl?"
Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful (as
if he were saying, "Do you wish to see me hanged?"), while his eyes
took a form which reminded me so of the Sawyer in a furious puzzle,
that it was impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to
do.
"No, I can not say, Firm, that I wish it at all; unless your heart
is set on it--"
"Don't you know, then, where my heart is set?" he asked me, in a
deep voice, coming nearer, and taking the ballad-book from my
hands. "Why will you feign not to know, Erema, who is the only one
I can ever think of twice? Above me, I know, in every possible
way--birth and education and mind and appearance, and now far above
me in money as well. But what are all these things? Try to think
if only you could like me. Liking gets over every thing, and
without it nothing is any thing. Why do I like you so, Erema? Is
it because of your birth, and teaching, and manners, and sweet
looks, and all that, or even because of your troubles?"
"How can I tell, Firm--how can I tell? Perhaps it is just because
of myself. And why do you do it at all, Firm?"
"Ah, why do I do it? How I wish I knew! Perhaps then I might cure
it. To begin with, what is there, after all, so very wonderful
about you?"
"Oh, nothing, I should hope. Most surely nothing. It would grieve
me to be at all wonderful. That I leave for American ladies."
"Now you don't understand me. I mean, of course, that you are
wonderfully good and kind and clever; and your eyes, I am sure, and
your lips and smile, and all your other features--there is nothing
about them that can be called any thing else but wonderful."
"Now, Firm, how exceedingly foolish you are! I did hope that you
knew better."
"Erema, I never shall know better. I never can swerve or change,
if I live to be a hundred and fifty. You think me presumptuous, no
doubt, from what you are brought up to. And you are so young that
to seek to bind you, even if you loved me, would be an unmanly
thing. But now you are old enough, and you know your own mind
surely well enough, just to say whether you feel as if you could
ever love me as I love you."
He turned away, as if he felt that he had no right to press me so,
and blamed himself for selfishness; and I liked him better for
doing that than for any thing he had done before. Yet I knew that
I ought to speak clearly, and though my voice was full of tears, I
tried.
"Dear Firm," I said, as I took his hand and strove to look at him
steadily, "I like and admire you very much; and by-and-by--by-and-
by, I might, that is, if you did not hurry me. Of all the
obstacles you have mentioned, none is worth considering. I am
nothing but a poor castaway, owing my life to Uncle Sam and you.
But one thing there is which could never be got over, even if I
felt as you feel toward me. Never can I think of little matters,
or of turning my thoughts to--to any such things as you speak of,
as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation lies on me. And
before even that, I have to think of my father, who gave his life
for me. Firm, I have been here too long delaying, and wasting my
time in trifles. I ought to have been in Europe long ago. If I am
old enough for what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty. If
I am old enough for love, as it is called, I am old enough for
hate. I have more to do with hate than love, I think."
"Erema," cried Firm, "what a puzzle you are! I never even dreamed
that you could be so fierce. You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam
himself."
"If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough. You see now how
vain it is to say another word."
"I do not see any thing of the sort. Come back, and look at me
quite calmly."
Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having
passed the prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up
gently and let him look at me to his liking. For little as I
thought of such things till now, I seemed already to know more
about them, or at least to wonder--which is the stir of the curtain
of knowledge. I did not say any thing, but labored to think
nothing and to look up with unconscious eyes. But Firm put me out
altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter like a stupid little
bird.
"My darling," he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such
as I could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes,
"you are not fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is
devoting you. You have not the hardness and bitterness of mind,
the cold self-possession and contempt of others, the power of
dissembling and the iron will--in a word, the fundamental
nastiness, without which you never could get through such a job.
Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!"
"I should hope not. I should earn your contempt, if I could."
"There, you are ready to cry at the thought. Erema, do not mistake
yourself. Remember that your father would never have wished it--
would have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it.
Why did he bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world
except to save you from further thought of evil? He knew that we
listen to no rumors here, no social scandals, or malignant lies;
but we value people as we find them. He meant this to be a haven
for you; and so it shall be if you will only rest; and you shall be
the queen of it. Instead of redressing his memory now, you would
only distress his spirit. What does he care for the world's gossip
now? But he does care for your happiness. I am not old enough to
tell you things as I should like to tell them. I wish I could--how
I wish I could! It would make all the difference to me."
"It would make no difference, Firm, to me; because I should know it
was selfishness. Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never
could be selfish; but the vilest selfishness of mine, the same as
starved my father. You can not see things as I see them, or else
you would not talk so. When you know that a thing is right, you do
it. Can you tell me otherwise? If you did, I should despise you."
"If you put it so, I can say no more. You will leave us forever,
Erema?"
"No, not forever. If the good God wills it, I will come back when
my work is done. Forgive me, dear Firm, and forget me."
"There is nothing to forgive, Erema; but a great deal I never can
hope to forgot."
CHAPTER XVIII
OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE
Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among
great ones, or at least among those which we call great. Before I
passed the Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called
from one of the Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long
wished to know--why Firm had a crooked nose. At least, it could
hardly be called crooked if any body looked aright at it; but still
it departed from the bold straight line which nature must have
meant for it, every thing else about him being as straight as could
be required. This subject had troubled me more than once, though
of course it had nothing whatever to do with the point of view
whence I regarded him.
Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the mill; I
certainly could not ask Firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do
when once I put the question, in despair, to him. But now, as we
stood on the wharf exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears
of anguish were in my eyes, and my heart was both full and empty,
ample and unexpected light was thrown on the curvature of Firm's
nose.
For a beautiful girl, of about my own age, and very nicely dressed,
came up and spoke to the Sawyer (who stood at my side), and then,
with a blush, took his grandson's hand. Firm took off his hat to
her very politely, but allowed her to see perhaps by his manner
that he was particularly engaged just now; and the young lady, with
a quick glance at me, walked off to rejoin her party. But a
garrulous old negro servant, who seemed to be in attendance upon
her, ran up and caught Firm by his coat, and peered up curiously at
his face.
"How young massa's poor nose dis long time? How him feel, spose
now again?" he inquired, with a deferential grin. "Young massa
ebber able take a pinch of good snuff? He! he! missy berry heavy
den? Missy no learn to dance de nose polka den?"
"What on earth does he mean?" I could not help asking, in spite of
our sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other
jokes and cackles at his own facetiousness. And then Uncle Sam, to
divert my thoughts, while I waited for signal to say good-by, told
me how Firm got a slight twist to his nose.
Ephraim Gundry had been well taught, in all the common things a man
should learn, at a good quiet school at Frisco, which distinguished
itself from all other schools by not calling itself a college. And
when he was leaving to begin home life, with as much put into him
as he could manage--for his nature was not bookish--when he was
just seventeen years old, and tall and straight and upright, but
not set into great bodily strength, which could not yet be
expected, a terrible fire broke out in a great block of houses
newly occupied, over against the school-house front. Without
waiting for master's leave or matron's, the boys, in the
Californian style, jumped over the fencing and went to help. And
they found a great crowd collected, and flames flaring out of the
top of the house. At the top of the house, according to a stupid
and therefore general practice, was the nursery, made of more
nurses than children, as often happens with rich people. The
nurses had run away for their lives, taking two of the children
with them; but the third, a fine little girl of ten, had been left
behind, and now ran to the window with red hot flames behind her.
The window was open, and barbs of fire, like serpents' tongues,
played over it.
"Jump, child, jump! for God's sake, jump!" cried half a hundred
people, while the poor scared creature quivered on the ledge, and
shrank from the frightful depth below. At last, stung by a
scorching volley, she gathered her night-gown tight, and leaped,
trusting to the many faces and many arms raised toward her. But
though many gallant men were there, only one stood fast just where
she fell, and that one was the youth, Firm Gundry. Upon him she
fell, like a stone from heaven, and though he held up his arms in
the smoky glare, she came down badly: badly, at least, for him,
but, as her father said, providentially; for one of her soles, or
heels, alighted on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose. He caught
her on his chest, and forgetful of himself, he bore her to her
friends triumphantly, unharmed, and almost smiling. But the
symmetry of an important part of his face was spoiled forever.
When I heard of this noble affair, and thought of my own
pusillanimous rendering--for verily I had been low enough, from
rumors of Firm's pugnacity, to attribute these little defects of
line to some fisticuffs with some miner--I looked at Firm's nose
through the tears in my eyes, and had a great mind not to go away
at all. For what is the noblest of all things in man--as I
bitterly learned thereafter, and already had some guesses? Not the
power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by orders; not the
elevation of one tribe through the lowering of others, nor even the
imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them: there may be
glory in all of these, but the greatness is not with them. It
remains with those who behave like Firm, and get their noses
broken.
However, I did not know those things at that time of life, though I
thought it right for every man to be brave and good; and I could
not help asking who the young lady was, as if that were part of the
heroism. The Sawyer, who never was unready for a joke, of however
ancient quality, gave a great wink at Firm (which I failed to
understand), and asked him how much the young lady was worth. He
expected that Firm would say, "Five hundred thousand dollars"--
which was about her value, I believe--and Uncle Sam wanted me to
hear it; not that he cared a single cent himself, but to let me
know what Firm could do.
Firm, however, was not to be led into any trap of that sort. He
knew me better than the old man did, and that nothing would stir me
to jealousy, and he quite disappointed the Sawyer.
"I have never asked what she is worth," he said, with a glance of
contempt at money; "but she scarcely seems worth looking at,
compared--compared with certain others."
In the distance I saw the young lady again, attempting no
attraction, but walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative
negro after her. It would have been below me to pursue the
subject, and I waited for others to re-open it; but I heard no more
about her until I had been for more than a week at sea, and was
able again to feel interest. Then I heard that her name was Annie
Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., who owned the ship I
sailed in.
But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how
wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored
him not to forget me. Over and over again he promised to be full
of thoughts of me, even when the new mill was started, which would
be a most trying time. He bowed his tall white head into my
sheveled hair, and blessed and kissed me, although I never deserved
it, and a number of people were looking on. Then I laid my hand in
Firm's, and he did not lift it to his lips, or sigh, but pressed it
long and softly, and looked into my eyes without a word. And I
knew that there would be none to love like them, wherever I might
go.
But the last of all to say "good-by" was my beloved Jowler. He
jumped into the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat,
the ship having laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my
shoulders, and whined and drooped his under-jaw. And when he
looked at me as he used, to know whether I was in fun or earnest,
with more expression in his bright brown eyes than any human being
has, I fell back under his weight and sobbed, and could not look at
any one.
We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed
the Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital
of the world, perhaps. For, as our captain said, all power and
human energy and strength are always going westward, and when they
come here they must stop, or else they would be going eastward
again, which they never yet have done. His argument may have been
right or wrong--and, indeed, it must have been one or the other--
but who could think of such things now, with a grander thing than
human power--human love fading away behind? I could not even bear
to see the glorious mountains sinking, but ran below and cried for
hours, until all was dark and calm.
The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed,
rather suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr.
Gundry, who had spent some years in California, was now returning
to England by the Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer
of the British army, now on half-pay, and getting on in years. His
wife was going home with him; for their children were married and
settled in England, all but one, now in San Francisco. And that
one being well placed in the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., had
obtained for his father and mother passage upon favorable terms,
which was, as we say, "an object to them."
For the Major, though admirably connected (as his kinship to
Colonel Gundry showed), and having a baronet not far off (if the
twists of the world were set aside), also having served his
country, and received a furrow on the top of his head, which made
him brush his hair up, nevertheless, or all the more for that, was
as poor as a British officer must be without official sesame. How
he managed to feed and teach a large and not clever family, and
train them all to fight their way in a battle worse than any of his
own, and make gentlemen and ladies of them, whatever they did or
wherever they went, he only knew, and his faithful wife, and the
Lord who helps brave poverty. Of such things he never spoke,
unless his temper was aroused by luxury and self-indulgence and
laziness.
But now he was a little better off, through having his children off
his hands, and by means of a little property left him by a distant
relative. He was on his way home to see to this; and a better man
never returned to England, after always standing up for her.
Being a child in the ways of the world, and accustomed to large
people, I could not make out Major Hockin at first, and thought him
no more than a little man with many peculiarities. For he was not
so tall as myself, until he put his high-heeled boots on, and he
made such a stir about trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only
grunted, that I took him to be nothing more than a fidgety old
campaigner. He wore a black-rimmed double eyeglass with blue side-
lights at his temples, and his hat, from the shape of his forehead,
hung back; he had narrow white wiry whiskers, and a Roman nose, and
most prominent chin, and keen gray eyes with gingery brows, which
contracted, like sharp little gables over them, whenever any thing
displeased him. Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn, close-shaven, and
gleaming with friction of yellow soap, added vigor to the general
expression of his face, which was firm and quick and straightforward.
The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand, Major Hockin
was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and
beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which,
though he was sixty-two years of age, seemed always to be ready
for a game of leap-frog.
We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the
coast ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower
Nevada could only be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every
body lay about in our ship where it seemed to afford the least
smell and heat, and nobody for a moment dreamed--for we really all
were dreaming--of any body with energy enough to be disturbed about
any thing, when Major Hockin burst in upon us all (who were trying
not to be red-hot in the feeble shade of poop awnings), leading by
the hand an ancient woman, scarcely dressed with decency, and
howling in a tone very sad to hear.
"This lady has been robbed!" cried the Major; "robbed, not fifteen
feet below us. Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished
treasures of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of
a life of honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a
fine cut of Colorado cheese."
"Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!" cried the poor woman,
wringing her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.
"Go to the captain," muttered one sleepy gentleman. "Go to the
devil," said another sleepy man: "what have we to do with it?"
"I will neither go to the captain," replied the Major, very
distinctly, "nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has
dared to suggest to me--"
"All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!" the poor old woman began
to scream; "the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un. Only
two have I ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of
'em. Oh dear! oh dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of
my things!"
"Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin.
Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like
to be treated so? Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you
lie like a parcel of Mexicans. If any body picked your pockets,
would you have life enough to roll over?"
"I don't think I should," said a fat young Briton, with a very
good-natured face; "but for a poor woman I can stand upright.
Major Hockin, here is a guinea for her. Perhaps more of us will
give a trifle."
"Well done!" cried the Major; "but not so much as that. Let us
first ascertain all the rights of the case. Perhaps half a crown
apiece would reach it."
Half a crown apiece would have gone beyond it, as we discovered
afterward, for the old lady's handkerchief was in her box, lost
under some more of her property; and the tide of sleepy charity
taking this direction under such vehement impulse, several other
steerage passengers lost their goods, but found themselves too late
in doing so. But the Major was satisfied, and the rude man who had
told him to go amiss, begged his pardon, and thus we sailed on
slowly and peaceably.
CHAPTER XIX
INSIDE THE CHANNEL
That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's
character. It was not for himself alone that he was so particular,
or, as many would call it, fidgety, to have every thing done
properly; for if any thing came to his knowledge which he thought
unfair to any one, it concerned him almost as much as if the wrong
had been done to his own home self. Through this he had fallen
into many troubles, for his impressions were not always accurate;
but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife said, "the
Major could not help it." The leading journals of the various
places in which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of
grievances sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had
suffered in purse by doing so. But the Major always said,
"Ventilate it, ventilate the subject, my dear Sir; bring public
opinion to bear on it." And Mrs. Hockin always said that it was
her husband to whom belonged the whole credit of this new and
spirited use of the fine word "ventilation."
As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to
say that the Major was the master. His sense of justice dictated
that, as well as his general briskness. Though he was not at all
like Mr. Gundry in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience
and more frequent intercourse with our sex had taught him to do
justice to us; and it was pleasant to hear him often defer to the
judgment of ladies. But this he did more, perhaps, in theory than
in practice; yet it made all the ladies declare to one another that
he was a perfect gentleman. And so he was, though he had his
faults; but his faults were such as we approve of.
But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of. And
whatever she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to
keep up with him. She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year,
and a great deal prettier because she never tried to look younger.
Silver hair, and gentle eyes, and a forehead in which all the cares
of eight children had scarcely imprinted a wrinkle, also a kind
expression of interest in whatever was spoken of, with a quiet
voice and smile, and a power of not saying too much at a time,
combined to make this lady pleasant.
Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her
care; and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society
of Suan Isco and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to
amend, which she did by example and without reproof. She shielded
me also in the cleverest way from the curiosity of the saloon,
which at first was very trying. For the Bridal Veil being a well-
known ship both for swift passages and for equipment, almost every
berth was taken, and when the weather was calm, quite a large
assembly sat down to dinner. Among these, of course, were some
ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve and self-consciousness,
and so on, made my reluctant face the mark for many a long and
searching gaze. My own wish had been not to dine thus in public;
but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for
curiosity, I took my seat between the Major and his wife, the
former having pledged himself to the latter to leave every thing to
her management. His temper was tried more than once to its utmost--
which was not a very great distance--but he kept his word, and did
not interfere; and I having had some experience with Firm, eschewed
all perception of glances. And as for all words, Mrs. Hockin met
them with an obtuse obliqueness; so that after a day or two it was
settled that nothing could be done about "Miss Wood."
It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled
shed of pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and
called "Miss Wood," like almost anybody else. I refused to
entertain such a very poor idea, and clung to the name which had
always been mine--for my father would never depart from it--and I
even burst into tears, which would, I suppose, be called
"sentimental;" but still the stern fact stared me in the face--I
must go as "Miss Wood," or not go at all. Upon this Major Hockin
had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move him from his
resolution.
Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from
wishing to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon
it, and even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's
chief duty, his own stern sense of right came in and sided with my
prayers to him. And so it was that he let me go, with pity for my
youth and sex, but a knowledge that I was in good hands, and an
inborn, perhaps "Puritanical" faith, that the Lord of all right
would see to me.
The Major, on the other hand, had none of this. He differed from
Uncle Sam as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree
differs from a great spreading king of the woods. He was not
without a strict sense of religion, especially when he had to march
men to church; and he never even used a bad word, except when
wicked facts compelled him. When properly let alone, and allowed
to nurse his own opinions, he had a respectable idea that all
things were certain to be ordered for the best; but nothing enraged
him so much as to tell him that when things went against him, or
even against his predictions.
It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most
adverse view of my case. He formed his opinions with the greatest
haste, and with the greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was
the most generous of mankind, if generous means one quite full of
his genus. And in my little case he had made up his mind that the
whole of the facts were against me. "Fact" was his favorite word,
and one which he always used with great effect, for nobody knows
very well what it means, as it does not belong to our language.
And so when he said that the facts were against me, who was there
to answer that facts are not truth?
This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through
himself, but through his wife. For I could not yet bring myself to
speak of the things that lay close at my heart to him, though I
knew that he must be aware of them. And he, like a gentleman, left
me to begin. I could often see that he was ready and quite eager
to give me the benefit of his opinion, which would only have turned
me against him, and irritated him, perhaps, with me. And having no
home in England, or, indeed, I might say, any where, I was to live
with the Major and his wife, supposing that they could arrange it
so, until I should discover relatives.
We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly;
and I thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of
the furious northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have
no idea in what latitude, though the passengers now talked quite
like seamen, at least till the sea got up again. However, at last
we made the English Channel, in the dreary days of November, and
after more peril there than any where else, we were safely docked
at Southampton. Here the Major was met by two dutiful daughters,
bringing their husbands and children, and I saw more of family life
(at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to observe before; and
although there were many little jars and brawls and cuts at one
another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some brothers
and sisters to quarrel with.
But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs.
Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched
time in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in
the very worst of weather. The ooze of the shore and the reek of
the water, and the dreary flatness of the land around (after the
glorious heaven-clad heights, which made me ashamed of littleness),
also the rough, stupid stare of the men, when I went about as an
American lady may freely do in America, and the sharpness of every
body's voice (instead of the genial tones which those who can not
produce them call "nasal," but which from a higher view are
cordial)--taken one after other, or all together, these things made
me think, in the first flush of thought, that England was not a
nice country. After a little while I found that I had been a great
deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet
comprehension. For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid
woman put over me, as if I could not mind myself--a cook, or a
nurse, or housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin
family, but to me a mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath
sometimes) a spy. What was I likely to do, or what was any one
likely to do to me, in a thoroughly civilized country, that I could
not even stay in private lodgings, where I had a great deal to
think of, without this dull creature being forced upon me? But the
Major so ordered it, and I gave in.
There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed
without slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to
"form my mind," as I was told to do. Major Hockin came down once
or twice to see me, and though I did not like him, yet it was
almost enough to make me do so to see a little liveliness. But I
could not and would not put up with a frightful German baron of
music, with a polished card like a toast-rack, whom the Major tried
to impress on me. As if I could stop to take music lessons!
"Miss Wood," said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last
time he came to see me, "I stand to you in loco parentis. That
means, with the duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what
not, of the unfortunate--I should say rather of the beloved--parent
deceased. I wish to be more careful of you than of a daughter of
my own--a great deal more careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say
a thousand times more careful, because you have not had the
discipline which a daughter of mine would have enjoyed. And you
are so impulsive when you take an idea! You judge every body by
your likings. That leads to error, error, error."
"My name is not Miss Wood," I answered; "my name is 'Erema
Castlewood.' Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody
knowing who I am, surely I may have my own name now."
When any body says "surely," at once up springs a question; nothing
being sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative. The
Major knew all those little things which manage women so manfully.
So he took me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me.
I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair,
nor even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or
figure was I conscious of false presentment. The Major was welcome
to lead me to the light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze
with all his eyes. My only vexation was with myself, because I
could not keep the weakness--which a stranger should not see--out
of my eyes, upon sudden remembrance who it was that used to have
the right to do such things to me. This it was, and nothing else,
that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.
"There, there, my dear!" said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than
usual. "Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the
world, and brave the world, and abolish the world--or at least the
world's opinion! 'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no
'bo' to a gander. No, no; do quietly what I advise--by-the-bye,
you have never asked my advice."
I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that
most; but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's
relaxation of his eyes,
"Oh, why have you never offered it to me? You knew that I never
could ask for it."
For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone
crosswise; and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith
in his opinions; which was now growing inevitable, with his wife
and daughters, and many grandchildren--all certain that he was a
Solomon.
"Erema," he said, "you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly
romantic. I had no idea that you had so much sense. I will talk
with you, Erema, when we both have leisure."
"I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin," I replied, "and only too
happy to listen to you."
"Yes, yes, I dare say. You are in lodgings. You can do exactly as
you please. But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a
woodcock waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Bless me! I am
five minutes late already. I will come and have a talk with you
afterward."
"Thank you," I said; "we had better leave it. It seems of no
importance, compared--compared with--"
"My dinner!" said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a
little, though neither of us meant to vex the other.
CHAPTER XX
BRUNTSEA
It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant
man or a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had
ordered, and his eagerness to sit down to it. Through all the best
years of his life he had been most frugal, abstemious, and self-
denying, grudging every penny of his own expense, but sparing none
for his family. And now, when he found himself so much better off,
with more income and less outlay, he could not be blamed for
enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of abstinence.
For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major
had discovered that the "little property" left to him, and which he
was come to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who
knew how to manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence.
And of these two qualities he had such abundance that, without any
outlet, they might have turned him sour.
The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin,
had long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet.
Sir Rufus hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with
the only alternative--extortion. Having no knowledge of his cousin
Nick (except that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to
be lazier even than himself had been, longing also to inflict even
posthumous justice upon the land agent, with the glad consent of
his heir he left this distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to
his beloved cousin Major Nicholas Hockin.
The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings
while he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to
speculate and his dread of speculation. At once he consulted our
Colonel Gundry, who met him by appointment at Sacramento; and Uncle
Sam having a vast idea of the value of land in England, which the
Major naturally made the most of, now being an English land-owner,
they spent a most pleasant evening, and agreed upon the line marked
out by Providence.
Thus it was that he came home, bringing (by kind arrangement) me,
who was much more trouble than comfort to him, and at first
disposed to be cold and curt. And thus it was that I was left so
long in that wretched Southampton, under the care of a very kind
person who never could understand me. And all this while (as I
ought to have known, without any one to tell me) Major Hockin was
testing the value and beating the bounds of his new estate, and
prolonging his dinner from one to two courses, or three if he had
been travelling. His property was large enough to afford him many
dinners, and rich enough (when rightly treated) to insure their
quality.
Bruntsea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of
England, in Kent or in Sussex, I am not sure which, for it has a
constitution of its own, and says that it belongs to neither. It
used to be a place of size and valor, furnishing ships, and finding
money for patriotic purposes. And great people both embarked and
landed, one doing this and the other that, though nobody seems to
have ever done both, if history is to be relied upon. The glory of
the place is still preserved in a seal and an immemorial stick,
each of which is blessed with marks as incomprehensible as could be
wished, though both are to be seen for sixpence. The name of the
place is written in more than forty different ways, they say; and
the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the youngest how to
spell it.
This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the
mouth, of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which
a sluggish river wins its muddy consummation. This river once went
far along the sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is
afraid to bathe), as the Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other
rivers do. And in those days the mouth and harbor were under the
cliff at Bruntsea, whence its seal and corporation, stick, and
other blessings. But three or four centuries ago the river was
drawn by a violent storm, like a badger from his barrel, and forced
to come straight out and face the sea, without any three miles of
dalliance. The time-serving water made the best of this, forsook
its ancient bed (as classic nymphs and fountains used to do), and
left poor Bruntsea with a dry bank, and no haven for a cockle-
shell. A new port, such as it is, incrusted the fickle jaw of the
river; piles were driven and earth-works formed, lest the water
should return to its old love; and Bruntsea, as concerned her
traffic, became but a mark of memory. Her noble corporation never
demanded their old channel, but regarded the whole as the will of
the Lord, and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except
their time-honored ceremonies.
In spite of all these and their importance, land became of no value
there. The owner of the Eastern Manor and of many ancient rights,
having no means of getting at them, sold them for an "old song,"
which they were; and the buyer was one of the Hockin race, a
shipwrecked mariner from Cornwall, who had been kindly treated
there, and took a fancy accordingly. He sold his share in some
mine to pay for it, settled here, and died here; and his son,
getting on in the world, built a house, and took to serious
smuggling. In the chalk cliff's eastward he found holes of honest
value to him, capable of cheap enlargement (which the Cornish holes
were not), and much more accessible from France. Becoming a
magistrate and deputy-lieutenant, he had the duty and privilege of
inquiring into his own deeds, which enabled him to check those few
who otherwise might have competed with him. He flourished, and
bought more secure estates; and his son, for activity against
smugglers, was made a gentle baronet.
These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the
Hockin family became a mere load and incumbrance. Sir George and
Sir Robert and Sir Rufus, one after another, did not like the hints
about contraband dealings which met them whenever they deigned to
come down there, till at last the estate (being left to an agent)
cost a great deal more than he ever paid in. And thus--as should
have been more briefly told--the owner was our Major Hockin.
No wonder that this gentleman, with so many cares to attend to, had
no time at first to send for me. And no wonder that when he came
down to see me, he was obliged to have good dinners. For the work
done by him in those three months surprised every body except
himself, and made in old Bruntsea a stir unknown since the time of
the Spanish Armada. For he owned the house under the eastern
cliff, and the warren, and the dairy-farm inland, and the slope of
the ground where the sea used to come, and fields where the people
grew potatoes gratis, and all the eastern village, where the
tenants paid their rents whenever they found it rational.
A hot young man, in a place like this, would have done a great deal
of mischief. Either he would have accepted large views, and
applauded this fine communism (if he could afford it, and had no
wife), or else he would have rushed at every body headlong, and
batted them back to their abutments. Neither course would have
created half the excitement which the Major's did. At least, there
might have been more talk at first, but not a quarter so much in
sum total. Of those things, however, there is time enough to
speak, if I dare to say any thing about them.
The things more to my mind (and therefore more likely to be made
plain to another mind) are not the petty flickering phantoms of the
shadow we call human, and which alone we realize, and dwell inside
it and upon it, as if it were all creation; but the infinitely
nobler things of ever-changing but perpetual beauty, and no
selfishness. These, without deigning to us even sense to be aware
of them, shape our little minds and bodies and our large self-
importance, and fail to know when the lord or king who owns is
buried under them. To have perception of such mighty truths is
good for all of us: and I never had keener perception of them than
when I sat down on the Major's camp-stool, and saw all his land
around me, and even the sea--where all the fish were his, as soon
as he could catch them--and largely reflected that not a square
foot of the whole world would ever belong to me.
"Bruntlands," as the house was called, perhaps from standing well
above the sea, was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff,
which looked down over Bruntsea. The cliff was of chalk, very
steep toward the sea, and showing a prominent headland toward the
south, but prettily rising in grassy curves from the inland and
from the westward. And then, where it suddenly chined away from
land-slope into sea-front, a long bar of shingle began at right
angles to it, and, as level as a railroad, went to the river's
mouth, a league or so now to the westward. And beyond that another
line of white cliffs rose, and looked well till they came to their
headland. Inside this bank of shingle, from end to end, might be
traced the old course of the river, and to landward of that trough
at the hither end stood, or lay, the calm old village.
Forsaken as it was by the river, this village stuck to its ancient
site and home, and instead of migrating, contracted itself, and
cast off needless members. Shrunken Bruntsea clung about the
oldest of its churches, while the four others fell to rack and
ruin, and settled into cow-yards and barns, and places where old
men might sit and sigh. But Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly
kept the old town's division into east and west.
East Bruntsea was wholly in the Major's manor, which had a special
charter; and most of the houses belonged to him. This ownership
hitherto had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-
down repairs (when the agent reported that they must be done), but
never must enter the door for his rent. The borough had been
disfranchised, though the snuggest of the snug for generations; and
the freemen, thus being robbed of their rights, had no power to
discharge their duties. And to complicate matters yet further, for
the few who wished to simplify them, the custom of "borough-
English" prevailed, and governed the descent of dilapidations,
making nice niceties for clever men of law.
"You see a fine property here, Miss Wood," Major Hockin said to me,
as we sat, on the day after I was allowed to come, enjoying the
fresh breeze from the sea and the newness of the February air, and
looking abroad very generally: "a very fine property, but
neglected--shamefully, horribly, atrociously neglected--but capable
of noble things, of grand things, of magnificent, with a trifle of
judicious outlay."
"Oh, please not to talk of outlay, my dear," said good Mrs. Hockin,
gently; "it is such an odious word; and where in the world is it to
come from?"
"Leave that to me. When I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy-
book was, 'Where there's a will there's a way.' Miss Wood, what is
your opinion? But wait, you must have time to understand the
subject. First we bring a railway--always the first step; why, the
line is already made for it by the course of the old river, and the
distance from Newport three miles and a half. It ought not to cost
quite 200 pounds a mile--the mere outlay for rails and sleepers.
The land is all mine, and--and of course other landed proprietors'.
Very well: these would all unite, of course; so that not a farthing
need be paid for land, which is the best half of the battle. We
have the station here--not too near my house; that would never do;
I could not bear the noise--but in a fine central place where
nobody on earth could object to it--lively, and close at hand for
all of them. Unluckily I was just too late. We have lost a
Parliamentary year through that execrable calm--you remember all
about it. Otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at
Bruntsea by the first of May. But never mind; we shall do it all
the better and cheaper by taking our time about it. Very well: we
have the railway opened and the trade of the place developed. We
build a fine terrace of elegant villas, a crescent also, and a
large hotel replete with every luxury; and we form the finest sea-
parade in England by simply assisting nature. Half London comes
down here to bathe, to catch shrimps, to flirt, and to do the rest
of it. We become a select, salubrious, influential, and yet
economical place; and then what do we do, Mrs. Hockin?"
"My dear, how can I tell? But I hope that we should rest and be
thankful."
"Not a bit of it. I should hope not, indeed. Erema, what do we do
then?"
"It is useless to ask me. Well, then, perhaps you set up a
handsome saw-mill!"
"A saw-mill! What a notion of Paradise! No; this is what we do--
but remember that I speak in the strictest confidence; dishonest
antagonism might arise, if we ventilated our ideas too soon--Mrs.
Hockin and Miss Wood, we demand the restoration of our river!--the
return of our river to its ancient course."
"I see," said his wife; "oh, how grand that would be! and how
beautiful from our windows! That really, now, is a noble thought!"
"A just one--simply a just one. Justice ought not to be noble, my
dear, however rare it may be. Generosity, magnanimity, heroism,
and so on--those are the things we call noble, my dear."
"And the founding of cities. Oh, my dear, I remember, when I was
at school, it was always said, in what we called our histories,
that the founders of cities had honors paid them, and altars built,
and divinities done, and holidays held in their honor."
"To that I object," cried the Major, sternly. "If I founded fifty
cities, I would never allow one holiday. The Sabbath is enough;
one day in seven--fifteen per cent, of one's whole time; and twenty
per cent, of your Sunday goes in church. Very right, of course,
and loyal, and truly edifying--Mrs. Hockin's father was a
clergyman, Miss Wood; and the last thing I would ever allow on my
manor would be a Dissenting chapel; but still I will have no new
churches here, and a man who might go against me. They all want to
pick their own religious views, instead of reflecting who supports
them! It never used to be so; and such things shall never occur on
my manor. A good hotel, attendance included, and a sound and
moderate table d'hote; but no church, with a popish bag sent round,
and money to pay, 'without anything to eat.'"
"My dear! my dear!" cried Mrs. Hockin, "I never like you to talk
like that. You quite forget who my father was, and your own second
son such a very sound priest!"
"A priest! Don't let him come here," cried the Major, "or I'll let
him know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec. A
priest! After going round the world three times, to come home and
be hailed as the father of a priest! Don't let him come near me,
or I'll sacrifice him."
"Now, Major, you are very proud of him," his good wife answered, as
he shook his stick. "How could he help taking orders when he was
under orders to do so? And his views are sound to the last degree,
most strictly correct and practical--at least except as to
celibacy."
"He holds that his own mother ought never to have been born! Miss
Wood, do you call that practical?"
"I have no acquaintance with such things," I replied; "we had none
of them in California. But is it practical, Major Hockin--of
course you know best in your engineering--I mean, would it not
require something like a tunnel for the river and the railway to
run on the same ground?"
"Why, bless me! That seems to have escaped my notice. You have
not been with old Uncle Sam for nothing. We shall have to appoint
you our chief engineer."
CHAPTER XXI
LISTLESS
It seemed an unfortunate thing for me, and unfavorable to my
purpose, that my host, and even my hostess too, should be so
engrossed with their new estate, its beauties and capabilities.
Mrs. Hockin devoted herself at once to fowls and pigs and the like
extravagant economies, having bought, at some ill-starred moment, a
book which proved that hens ought to lay eggs in a manner to
support themselves, their families, and the family they belonged
to, at the price of one penny a dozen. Eggs being two shillings a
dozen in Bruntsea, here was a margin for profit--no less than two
thousand per cent, to be made, allowing for all accidents. The
lady also found another book, divulging for a shilling the author's
purely invaluable secret--how to work an acre of ground, pay house
rent, supply the house grandly, and give away a barrow-load of
vegetables every day to the poor of the parish, by keeping a pig--
if that pig were kept properly. And after that, pork and ham and
bacon came of him, while another golden pig went on.
Mrs. Hockin was very soft-hearted, and said that she never could
make bacon of a pig like that; and I answered that if she ever got
him it would be unwise to do so. However, the law was laid down in
both books that golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death
before they begin to overeat production; and the Major said, "To be
sure. Yes, yes. Let them come to good meat, and then off with
their heads." And his wife said that she was sure she could do it.
When it comes to a question of tare and tret, false sentiment must
be excluded.
At the moment, these things went by me as trifles, yet made me more
impatient. Being older now, and beholding what happens with
tolerance and complacence, I am only surprised that my good friends
were so tolerant of me and so complacent. For I must have been a
great annoyance to them, with my hurry and my one idea. Happily
they made allowance for me, which I was not old enough to make for
them.
"Go to London, indeed! Go to London by yourself!" cried the Major,
with a red face, and his glasses up, when I told him one morning
that I could stop no longer without doing something. "Mary, my
dear, when you have done out there, will you come in and reason--if
you can--with Miss Wood. She vows that she is going to London, all
alone."
"Oh, Major Hockin--oh, Nicholas dear, such a thing has happened!"
Mrs. Hockin had scarcely any breath to tell us, as she came in
through the window. "You know that they have only had three
bushels, or, at any rate, not more than five, almost ever since
they came. Erema, you know as well as I do."
"Seven and three-quarter bushels of barley, at five and ninepence a
bushel, Mary," said the Major, pulling out a pocket-book; "besides
Indian corn, chopped meat, and potatoes."
"And fourteen pounds of paddy," I said--which was a paltry thing of
me; "not to mention a cake of graves, three sacks of brewers'
grains, and then--I forget what next."
"You are too bad, all of you. Erema, I never thought you would
turn against me so. And you made me get nearly all of it. But
please to look here. What do you call this? Is this no reward?
Is this not enough? Major, if you please, what do you call this?
What a pity you have had your breakfast!"
"A blessing--if this was to be my breakfast. I call that, my dear,
the very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows' nests. No
wonder they sell them at twelve a penny. I congratulate you upon
your first egg, my dear Mary."
"Well, I don't care," replied Mrs. Hockin, who had the sweetest
temper in the world. "Small beginnings make large endings; and an
egg must be always small at one end. You scorn my first egg, and
Erema should have had it if she had been good. But she was very
wicked, and I know not what to do with it."
"Blow it!" cried the Major. "I mean no harm, ladies. I never use
low language. What I mean is, make a pinhole at each end, give a
puff, and away goes two pennyworth, and you have a cabinet
specimen, which your egg is quite fitted by its cost to be. But
now, Mary, talk to Miss Wood, if you please. It is useless for me
to say any thing, and I have three appointments in the town"--he
always called it "the town" now--"three appointments, if not four;
yes, I may certainly say four. Talk to Miss Wood, my dear, if you
please. She wants to go to London, which would be absurd. Ladies
seem to enter into ladies' logic. They seem to be able to
appreciate it better, to see all the turns, and the ins and outs,
which no man has intellect enough to see, or at least to make head
or tail of. Good-by for the present; I had better be off."
"I should think you had," exclaimed Mrs. Hockin, as her husband
marched off, with his side-lights on, and his short, quick step,
and well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him, and
the beach, over which he had rights of plunder--or, at least, Uncle
Sam would have called them so, strictly as he stood up for his own.
"Now come and talk quietly to me, my dear," Mrs. Hockin began, most
kindly, forgetting all the marvel of her first-born egg. "I have
noticed how restless you are, and devoid of all healthy interest in
any thing. 'Listless' is the word. 'Listless' is exactly what I
mean, Erema. When I was at your time of life, I could never have
gone about caring for nothing. I wonder that you knew that I even
had a fowl; much more how much they had eaten!"
"I really do try to do all I can, and that is a proof of it," I
said. "I am not quite so listless as you think. But those things
do seem so little to me."
"My dear, if you were happy, they would seem quite large, as, after
all the anxieties of my life, I am able now to think them. It is a
power to be thankful for, or, at least, I often think so. Look at
my husband! He has outlived and outlasted more trouble than any
one but myself could reckon up to him; and yet he is as brisk, as
full of life, as ready to begin a new thing to-morrow--when, at our
age, there may be no to-morrow, except in that better world, my
dear, of which it is high time for him and me to think, as I truly
hope we may spare the time to do."
"Oh, don't talk like that," I cried. "Please, Mrs. Hockin, to talk
of your hens and chicks--at least there will be chicks by-and-by.
I am almost sure there will, if you only persevere. It seems
unfair to set our minds on any other world till justice has been
done in this."
"You are very young, my child, or you would know that in that case
we never should think of it at all. But I don't want to preach you
a sermon, Erema, even if I could do so. I only just want you to
tell me what you think, what good you imagine that you can do."
"It is no imagination. I am sure that I can right my father's
wrongs. And I never shall rest till I do so."
"Are you sure that there is any wrong to right?" she asked, in the
warmth of the moment; and then, seeing perhaps how my color
changed, she looked at me sadly, and kissed my forehead.
"Oh, if you had only once seen him," I said; "without any
exaggeration, you would have been satisfied at once. That he could
ever have done any harm was impossible--utterly impossible. I am
not as I was. I can listen to almost any thing now quite calmly.
But never let me hear such a wicked thing again."
"You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all
your friends. No one can help being sorry for you. Very few girls
have been placed as you are. I am sure when I think of my own
daughters I can never be too thankful. But the very first thing
you have to learn, above all things, is to control yourself."
"I know it--I know it, of course," I said; "and I keep on trying my
very best. I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you
will try to forgive me."
"A very slight exertion is enough for that. But now, my dear, what
I want to know is this--and you will excuse me if I ask too much--
what good do you expect to get by going thus to London? Have you
any friend there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what
you are to do?"
"Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind," I answered, very
bravely: "I have the address of a very good woman, found among my
father's papers, who nursed his children and understood his nature,
and always kept her faith in him. There must be a great many more
who do the same, and she will be sure to know them and introduce me
to them; and I shall be guided by their advice."
"But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found,
or has changed her opinion?"
"Her opinion she never could change. But if she is not to be
found, I shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and
besides that, I have a hundred things to do. I have the address of
the agent through whom my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam
let me know as little as he could. And I know who his bankers were
(when he had a bank), and he may have left important papers there."
"Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may
always be relied upon. And there may be some valuable plate,
Erema. But why not let the Major go with you? His advice is so
invaluable."
"I know that it is, in all ordinary things. But I can not have him
now, for a very simple reason. He has made up his mind about my
dear father--horribly, horribly; I can't speak of it. And he never
changes his mind; and sometimes when I look at him I hate him."
"Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show
it. Is the whole world divided, then, into two camps--those who
think as you wish and those who are led by their judgment to think
otherwise? And are you to hate all who do not think as you wish?"
"No, because I do not hate you," I said; "I love you, though you do
not think as I wish. But that is only because you think your
husband must be right of course. But I can not like those who have
made up their minds according to their own coldness."
"Major Hockin is not cold at all. On the contrary, he is a warm-
hearted man--I might almost say hot-hearted."
"Yes, I know he is. And that makes it ten times worse. He takes
up every body's case--but mine."
"Sad as it is, you almost make me smile," my hostess answered,
gravely; "and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just
and kind my husband is. I am sure that you will give him credit
for at least desiring to take your part. And doing so, at least
you might let him go with you, if only as a good protection."
"I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that
he would not like. In a good cause he would go any where, I know.
But in my cause, of course he would be scrupulous. Your kindness I
always can rely upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well."
"My dear, he has never been unkind to you. I am certain that you
never can say that of him. Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like
you!"
"The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity," I answered,
less humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in
my tone, perhaps. "If people choose to pity me, they are very
good, and I am not at all offended, because--because they can not
help it, perhaps, from not knowing any thing about me. I have
nothing whatever to be pitied for, except that I have lost my
father, and have nobody left to care for me, except Uncle Sam in
America."
"Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man,
Erema," said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any
craft in her; "I never saw him--a great loss on my part. But the
Major went up to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock
of his best tie broken, and two buttons gone from his waistcoat.
Does Uncle Sam make people laugh so much? or is it that he has some
extraordinary gift of inducing people to taste whiskey? My husband
is a very--most abstemious man, as you must be well aware, Miss
Wood, or we never should have been as we are, I am sure. But, for
the first time in all my life, I doubted his discretion on the
following day, when he had--what shall I say?--when he had been
exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam."
"Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way," I replied to this new
attack; "he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops. Do you
think that it may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were
too strong and large for the Major?"
"Erema!" cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to
think or express my thoughts on life so early; "if you can talk
politics at eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where. I have
heard a great deal of American ladies, and seen not a little of
them, as you know. But I thought that you called yourself an
English girl, and insisted particularly upon it."
"Yes, that I do; and I have good reason. I am born of an old
English family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it. But being
brought up in a number of ways, as I have been without thinking of
it, and being quite different from the fashionable girls Major
Hockin likes to walk with--"
"My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!"
"Oh yes, I remember! I was thinking of the deck. There are no
fashionable girls here yet. Till the terrace is built, and the
esplanade--"
"There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do
such things upon them."
"I am sure that he never would," I replied; "it was only their
dresses that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind,
extraordinary style, as well as unbecoming. You know what I mean,
Mrs. Hockin, that wonderful--what shall I call it?--way of looping
up."
"Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so
dreadful. You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it,
stuck up here, and going down there. Erema, what observation you
have! Nothing ever seems to escape you. Did you ever see any
thing so indecorous?"
"It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them," I
answered, with perfect truth, for so it did; "I have never been
accustomed to such things. But seeing how the Major approved of
them, and liked to be walking up and down between them, I knew that
they must be not only decorous, but attractive. There is no appeal
from his judgment, is there?"
"I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have
always longed to say a few words about that. For I can not help
thinking that he went too far."
CHAPTER XXII
BETSY BOWEN
So far, then, there was nobody found to go into my case, and to
think with me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the
exception of Firm Gundry. And I feared that he tried to think with
me because of his faithful and manly love, more than from balance
of evidence. The Sawyer, of course, held my father guiltless,
through his own fidelity and simple ways; but he could not enter
into my set thought of a stern duty laid upon me, because to his
mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing so long as a man did
aright. For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I was a great deal
too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost equal value
with clear conscience. And therefore, wise or foolish, rich or
poor, beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things,
and restless in all, until I should establish truth and justice.
However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly
obstinate, and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though
hateful opinions, I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I
should not do any thing out of keeping with English ideas and
habits. In a word, I accepted the Major's kind offer to see me
quite safe in good hands in London, or else bring me straightway
back again. And I took only just things enough for a day or two,
meaning to come back by the end of the week. And I kissed Mrs.
Hockin just enough for that.
It would not be a new thing for me to say that "we never know what
is going to happen;" but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old
common sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted)
show themselves. At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for
nothing, at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of
my journey. The Major had wished to go first to the bank, and
appeared to think nothing of any thing else; but I, on the other
hand, did not want him there, preferring to keep him out of my
money matters, and so he was obliged to let me have my way.
I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve
me right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered
either at the place which we tried first, or that to which we were
sent thence. Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as
much as to hint that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all
a wild-goose chase. And being more curious than ever now to go to
the bank and ransack, he actually called out to the cabman to drive
without delay to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin. But I
begged him to allow me just one minute while I spoke to the
servant-maid alone. Then I showed her a sovereign, at which she
opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she told me that
"though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about it,
because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss
that was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond
belief, she could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would
promise faithfully not to tell." This promise I gave with
fidelity, and returning to the cabman, directed him to drive not to
Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin just yet, but to No. 17
European Square, St. Katharine's.
From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly
as crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last
into European Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong
opening pitched with rough granite, and distinguished with a pump.
There were great thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the
place itself seemed unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into
it, only murmurous with distant London din, as the spires of a
shell hold the heavings of the sea. After driving three or four
times round the pump, for the houses were numbered anyhow, we found
No. 17, and I jumped out.
"Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood," cried the Major,
who was now a little crusty; "English ladies allow themselves to be
handed out, without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor."
"But I wanted to save you the honor," I said. "I will come back
immediately, if you will kindly wait." And with this I ran up the
old steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came
and gazed through dingy windows.
"Can I see Mrs. Strouss?" I asked, when a queer old man in faded
brown livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the
sun was shining.
"I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good
Meeses Strouss also."
"Thank you, but that will not do," I replied; "my business is with
Mrs. Strouss alone."
He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the
chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the
Major looked out of the cab and laughed.
"You had better come back while you can," he said, "though they
seem in no hurry to swallow you."
This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to
him. The house looked very respectable, and there were railings to
the area.
"The house is very respectable," continued Major Hockin, who always
seemed to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner
ran up the steps; "just look, the scraper is clean. You never see
that, or at least not often, except with respectable people,
Erema."
"Pray what would my scraper be? and who is Erema?" cried a strong,
clear voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout,
tall woman with a flush in her cheeks confronted us. "I never knew
more than one Erema--Good mercy!"
My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back
into a lobby chair. She knew me by my likeness to my father,
falling on the memories started by my name; and strong as she was,
the surprise overcame her, at the sound of which up rushed the
small Herr Strouss.
"Vhat are you doing dere, all of you? vhat have you enterprised
with my frau? Explain, Vilhelmina, or I call de policemans, vhat I
should say de peelers."
"Stop!" cried the Major, and he stopped at once, not for the word,
which would have had no power, although I knew nothing about it
then, but because he had received a sign which assured him that
here was a brother Mason. In a moment the infuriated husband
vanished into the rational and docile brother.
"Ladies and gentlemans, valk in, if you please," he said, to my
great astonishment; "Vilhelmina and my good self make you velcome
to our poor house. Vilhelmina, arise and say so."
"Go to the back kitchen, Hans," replied Wilhelmina, whose name was
"Betsy," "and don't come out until I tell you. You will find work
to do there, and remember to pump up. I wish to hear things that
you are not to hear, mind you. Shut yourself in, and if you soap
the door to deceive me, I shall know it."
"Vere goot, vere goot," said the philosophical German; "I never
meddle with nothing, Vilhelmina, no more than vhat I do for de
money and de house."
Betsy, however, was not quite so sure of that. With no more
ceremony she locked him in, and then came back to us, who could not
make things out.
"My husband is the bravest of the brave," she told us, while she
put down his key on the table; "and a nobler man never lived; I am
sure of that. But every one of them foreigners--excuse me, Sir,
you are an Englishman?"
"I am," replied the Major, pulling up his little whiskers; "I am
so, madam, and nothing you can say will in any way hurt my
feelings. I am above nationalities."
"Just so, Sir. Then you will feel with me when I say that they
foreigners is dreadful. Oh, the day that I ever married one of
'em--but there, I ought to be ashamed of myself, and my lord's
daughter facing me."
"Do you know me?" I asked, with hot color in my face, and my eyes,
I dare say, glistening. "Are you sure that you know me? And then
please to tell me how."
As I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn
for travelling, and my hair, having caught in a pin, fell round me,
and before I could put it up, or even think of it, I lay in the
great arms of Betsy Bowen, as I used to lie when I was a little
baby, and when my father was in his own land, with a home and wife
and seven little ones. And to think of this made me keep her
company in crying, and it was some time before we did any thing
else.
"Well, well," replied the Major, who detested scenes, except when
he had made them; "I shall be off. You are in good hands; and the
cabman pulled out his watch when we stopped. So did I. But he is
sure to beat me. They draw the minute hand on with a magnet, I am
told, while the watch hangs on their badge, and they can swear they
never opened it. Wonderful age, very wonderful age, since the time
when you and I were young, ma'am."
"Yes, Sir; to be sure, Sir!" Mrs. Strouss replied, as she wiped her
eyes to speak of things; "but the most wonderfulest of all things,
don't you think, is the going of the time, Sir? No cabby can make
it go faster while he waits, or slower while he is a-driving, than
the minds inside of us manage it. Why, Sir, it wore only like
yesterday that this here tall, elegant, royal young lady was a-
lying on my breast, and what a hand she was to kick! And I said
that her hair was sure to grow like this. If I was to tell you
only half what comes across me--"
"If you did, ma'am, the cabman would make his fortune, and I should
lose mine, which is more than I can afford. Erema, after dinner I
shall look you up. I know a good woman when I see her, Mrs.
Strouss, which does not happen every day. I can trust Miss
Castlewood with you. Good-by, good-by for the present."
It was the first time he had ever called me by my proper name, and
that made me all the more pleased with it.
"You see, Sir, why I were obliged to lock him in," cried the "good
woman," following to the door, to clear every blur from her
virtues; "for his own sake I done it, for I felt my cry a-coming,
and to see me cry--Lord bless you, the effect upon him is to call
out for a walking-stick and a pint of beer."
"All right, ma'am, all right!" the Major answered, in a tone which
appeared to me unfeeling. "Cabman, are you asleep there? Bring
the lady's bag this moment."
As the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that
good protector again in this vast maze of millions, I could not
help letting a little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my
outburst. I had heard so much in America of the dark, subtle
places of London, and the wicked things that happen all along the
Thames, discovered or invented by great writers of their own, that
the neighborhood of the docks and the thought of rats (to which I
could never grow accustomed) made me look with a flash perhaps of
doubt at my new old friend.
"You are not sure of me, Miss Erema," said Mrs. Strouss, without
taking offense. "After all that has happened, who can blame it on
you? But your father was not so suspicious, miss. It might have
been better for him if he had--according, leastways, to my belief,
which a team of wild horses will never drag out."
"Oh, only let me hear you talk of that!" I exclaimed, forgetting
all other things. "You know more about it than any body I have
ever met with, except my own father, who would never tell a word."
"And quite right he was, miss, according to his views. But come to
my little room, unless you are afraid. I can tell you some things
that your father never knew."
"Afraid! do you think I am a baby still? But I can not bear that
Mr. Strouss should be locked up on my account."
"Then he shall come out," said Mrs. Strouss, looking at me very
pleasantly. "That was just like your father, Miss Erema. But I
fall into the foreign ways, being so much with the foreigners."
Whether she thought it the custom among "foreigners" for wives to
lock their husbands in back kitchens was more than she ever took
the trouble to explain. But she walked away, in her stout, firm
manner, and presently returned with Mr. Strouss, who seemed to be
quite contented, and made me a bow with a very placid smile.
"He is harmless; his ideas are most grand and good," his wife
explained to me, with a nod at him. "But I could not have you in
with the gentleman, Hans. He always makes mistakes with the
gentlemen, miss, but with the ladies he behaves quite well."
"Yes, yes, with the ladies I am nearly always goot," Herr Strouss
replied, with diffidence. "The ladies comprehend me right, all
right, because I am so habitual with my wife. But the gentlemans
in London have no comprehension of me."
"Then the loss is on their side," I answered, with a smile; and he
said, "Yes, yes, they lose vere much by me."
CHAPTER XXIII
BETSY'S TALE
Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into
narrative what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or
to let her tell the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself
told it then to me. The story was so dark and sad--or at least to
myself it so appeared--that even the little breaks and turns of
lighter thought or livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to
vary now and then the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and
jar upon its sombre monotone. On the other hand, by omitting
these, and departing from her homely style, I might do more of harm
than good through failing to convey impressions, or even facts, so
accurately. Whereas the gist and core and pivot of my father's
life and fate are so involved (though not evolved) that I would not
miss a single point for want of time or diligence. Therefore let
me not deny Mrs. Strouss, my nurse, the right to put her words in
her own way. And before she began to do this she took the trouble
to have every thing cleared away and the trays brought down, that
her boarders (chiefly German) might leave their plates and be
driven to their pipes.
"If you please, Miss Castlewood," Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, "do
you or do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls
himself?--an improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is
their nature. He can hold his tongue as well as any man, though
none of them are very sure at that. And he knows pretty nigh as
much as I do, so far as his English can put things together, being
better accustomed in German. For when we were courting I was fain
to tell him all, not to join him under any false pretenses, miss,
which might give him grounds against me."
"Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true--so goot and true as can
be."
"And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any
kind of messages. He can do that very well, I assure you, miss--
better than any Englishman."
Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged
him to stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear
the tale alone.
"Then sit by the door, Hans, and keep off the draught," said his
Wilhelmina, kindly. "He is not very tall, miss, but he has good
shoulders; I scarcely know what I should do without him. Well,
now, to begin at the very beginning: I am a Welshwoman, as you may
have heard. My father was a farmer near Abergavenny, holding land
under Sir Watkin Williams, an old friend of your family. My father
had too many girls, and my mother scarcely knew what to do with the
lot of us. So some of us went out to service, while the boys staid
at home to work the land. One of my sisters was lady's-maid to
Lady Williams, Sir Watkin's wife, at the time when your father came
visiting there for the shooting of the moor-fowl, soon after his
marriage with your mother. What a sweet good lady your mother was!
I never saw the like before or since. No sooner did I set eyes
upon her but she so took my fancy that I would have gone round the
world with her. We Welsh are a very hot people, they say--not
cold-blooded, as the English are. So, wise or foolish, right,
wrong, or what might be, nothing would do for me but to take
service, if I could, under Mrs. Castlewood. Your father was called
Captain Castlewood then--as fine a young man as ever clinked a
spur, but without any boast or conceit about him; and they said
that your grandfather, the old lord, kept him very close and spare,
although he was the only son. Now this must have been--let me see,
how long ago?--about five-and-twenty years, I think. How old are
you now, Miss Erema? I can keep the weeks better than the years,
miss."
"I was eighteen on my last birthday. But never mind about the
time--go on."
"But the time makes all the difference, miss, although at the time
we may never think so. Well, then, it must have been better than
six-and-twenty year agone; for though you came pretty fast, in the
Lord's will, there was eight years between you and the first-born
babe, who was only just a-thinking of when I begin to tell. But to
come back to myself, as was--mother had got too many of us still,
and she was glad enough to let me go, however much she might cry
over it, as soon as Lady Williams got me the place. My place was
to wait upon the lady first, and make myself generally useful, as
they say. But it was not very long before I was wanted in other
more important ways, and having been brought up among so many
children, they found me very handy with the little ones; and being
in a poor way, as they were then--for people, I mean, of their
birth and place--they were glad enough soon to make head nurse of
me, although I was under-two-and-twenty.
"We did not live at the old lord's place, which is under the hills
looking on the river Thames, but we had a quiet little house in
Hampshire; for the Captain was still with his regiment, and only
came to and fro to us. But a happier little place there could not
be, with the flowers, and the cow, and the birds all day, and the
children running gradually according to their age, and the pretty
brook shining in the valley. And as to the paying of their way, it
is true that neither of them was a great manager. The Captain
could not bear to keep his pretty wife close; and she, poor thing,
was trying always to surprise him with other presents besides all
the beautiful babies. But they never were in debt all round, as
the liars said when the trouble burst; and if they owed two or
three hundred pounds, who could justly blame them?
"For the old lord, instead of going on as he should, and widening
his purse to the number of the mouths, was niggling at them always
for offense or excuse, to take away what little he allowed them.
The Captain had his pay, which would go in one hand, and the lady
had a little money of her own; but still it was cruel for brought-
up people to have nothing better to go on with. Not that the old
lord was a miser neither; but it was said, and how far true I know
not, that he never would forgive your father for marrying the
daughter of a man he hated. And some went so far as to say that if
he could have done it, he would have cut your father out of all the
old family estates. But such a thing never could I believe of a
nobleman having his own flesh and blood.
"But, money or no money, rich or poor, your father and mother, I
assure you, my dear, were as happy as the day was long. For they
loved one another and their children dearly, and they did not care
for any mixing with the world. The Captain had enough of that when
put away in quarters; likewise his wife could do without it better
and better at every birth, though once she had been the very gayest
of the gay, which you never will be, Miss Erema.
"Now, my dear, you look so sad and so 'solid,' as we used to say,
that if I can go on at all, I must have something ready. I am
quite an old nurse now, remember. Hans, go across the square, and
turn on the left hand round the corner, and then three more streets
toward the right, and you see one going toward the left, and you go
about seven doors down it, and then you see a corner with a lamp-
post."
"Vilhelmina, I do see de lamp-post at de every corner."
"That will teach you to look more bright, Hans. Then you find a
shop window with three blue bottles, and a green one in the
middle."
"How can be any middle to three, without it is one of them?"
"Then let it be two of them. How you contradict me! Take this
little bottle, and the man with a gold braid round a cap, and a
tassel with a tail to it, will fill it for four-pence when you tell
him who you are."
"Yes, yes; I do now comprehend. You send me vhere I never find de
vay, because I am in de vay, Vilhelmina!"
I was most thankful to Mrs. Strouss for sending her husband
(however good and kind-hearted he might be) to wander among many
shops of chemists, rather than to keep his eyes on me, while I
listened to things that were almost sure to make me want my eyes my
own. My nurse had seen, as any good nurse must, that, grown and
formed as I might be, the nature of the little child that cries for
its mother was in me still.
"It is very sad now," Mrs. Strouss began again, without replying to
my grateful glance; "Miss Erema, it is so sad that I wish I had
never begun with it. But I see by your eyes--so like your
father's, but softer, my dear, and less troublesome--that you will
have the whole of it out, as he would with me once when I told him
a story for the sake of another servant. It was just about a month
before you were born, when the trouble began to break on us. And
when once it began, it never stopped until all that were left ran
away from it. I have read in the newspapers many and many sad
things coming over whole families, such as they call 'shocking
tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more galling
than what I had to see with my very own eyes.
"It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord
Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at
Shoxford. We heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see
to the truth of some rumors which had reached him about our style
of living. It was the first time he had ever been there; for
although he had very often been invited, he could not bear to be
under the roof of the daughter, as he said, of his enemy. The
Captain, just happening to come home on leave for his autumn
holiday, met his father quite at his own door--the very last place
to expect him. He afterward acknowledged that he was not pleased
for his father to come 'like a thief in the night.' However, they
took him in and made him welcome, and covered up their feelings
nicely, as high-bred people do.
"What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except
so far as now I tell you. A better dinner than usual for two was
ready, to celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his
holiday; and the old lord, having travelled far that day, was
persuaded to sit down with them. The five eldest children (making
all except the baby, for you was not born, miss, if you please)
they were to have sat up at table, as pretty as could be--three
with their high cushioned stools, and two in their arm-chairs
screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with rods in
front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding, which
they did--it was a sight to see them! And how they would give to
one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo,
dat for oo.' Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it!
What a blessing for you! All those six dear darlings laid in their
little graves within six weeks, with their mother planted under
them; and the only wonder is that you yourself was not upon her
breast.
"Pay you no heed to me, Miss Erema, when you see me a-whimpering in
and out while I am about it. It makes my chest go easy, miss, I do
assure you, though not at the time of life to understand it. All
they children was to have sat up for the sake of their dear father,
as I said just now; but because of their grandfather all was
ordered back. And back they come, as good as gold, with Master
George at the head of them, and asked me what milk-teeth was.
Grandpa had said that 'a dinner was no dinner if milk-teeth were
allowed at it.' The hard old man, with his own teeth false! He
deserved to sit down to no other dinner--and he never did, miss.
"You may be sure that I had enough to do to manage all the little
ones and answer all their questions; but never having seen a live
lord before, and wanting to know if the children would be like him
before so very long, I went quietly down stairs, and the biggest of
my dears peeped after me. And then, by favor of the parlor-maid--
for they kept neither butler nor footman now--I saw the Lord
Castlewood, sitting at his ease, with a glass of port-wine before
him, and my sweet mistress (the Captain's wife, and your mother, if
you understand, miss) doing her very best, thinking of her
children, to please him and make the polite to him. To me he
seemed very much to be thawing to her--if you can understand, miss,
what my meaning is--and the Captain was looking at them with a
smile, as if it were just what he had hoped for. From my own
eyesight I can contradict the lies put about by nobody knows who,
that the father and the son were at hot words even then.
"And I even heard my master, when they went out at the door, vainly
persuading his father to take such a bed as they could offer him.
And good enough it would have been for ten lords; for I saw nothing
wonderful in him, nor fit to compare any way with the Captain. But
he would not have it, for no other reason of ill-will or temper,
but only because he had ordered his bed at the Moonstock Inn, where
his coach and four were resting.
"'I expect you to call me in the morning, George,' I heard him say,
as clear as could be, while his son was helping his coat on. 'I am
glad I have seen you. There are worse than you. And when the
times get better, I will see what I can do.'
"With him this meant more than it might have done; for he was not a
man of much promises, as you might tell by his face almost, with
his nose so stern, and his mouth screwed down, and the wrinkles the
wrong way for smiling. I could not tell what the Captain answered,
for the door banged on them, and it woke the baby, who was
dreaming, perhaps, about his lordship's face, and his little teeth
gave him the wind on his chest, and his lungs was like bellows--
bless him!
"Well, that stopped me, Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my
testimony. What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and
rattling of the rings to please him--when they put me on the
Testament, cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into
me, and both my ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have
gone too far, with my heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of
contradiction, wishful as I was to tell the whole truth in a manner
to hurt nobody. And without any single lie or glaze of mine, I do
assure you, miss, that I did more harm than good; every body in the
room--a court they called it, and no bigger than my best parlor--
one and all they were convinced that I would swear black was white
to save my master and mistress! And certainly I would have done
so, and the Lord in heaven thought the better of me, for the sake
of all they children, if I could have made it stick together, as
they do with practice."
At thought of the little good she had done, and perhaps the great
mischief, through excess of zeal, Mrs. Strouss was obliged to stop,
and put her hand to her side, and sigh. And eager as I was for
every word of this miserable tale, no selfish eagerness could deny
her need of refreshment, and even of rest; for her round cheeks
were white, and her full breast trembled. And now she was
beginning to make snatches at my hand, as if she saw things she
could only tell thus.
CHAPTER XXIV
BETSY'S TALE--(Continued.)
"I am only astonished, my dear," said my nurse, as soon as she had
had some tea and toast, and scarcely the soft roe of a red herring,
"that you can put up so well, and abide with my instincts in the
way you do. None of your family could have done it, to my
knowledge of their dispositions, much less the baby that was next
above you. But it often comes about to go in turns like that;
'one, three, five, and seven is sweet, while two, four, and six is
a-squalling with their feet.' But the Lord forgive me for an ill
word of them, with their precious little bodies washed, and laying
in their patterns till the judgment-day.
"But putting by the words I said in the dirty little room they
pleased to call a 'court,' and the Testament so filthy that no lips
could have a hold of it, my meaning is to tell you, miss, the very
things that happened, so that you may fairly judge of them. The
Captain came back from going with his father, I am sure, in less
than twenty minutes, and smoking a cigar in his elegant way, quite
happy and contented, for I saw him down the staircase. As for sign
of any haste about him, or wiping of his forehead, or fumbling with
his handkerchief, or being in a stew in any sort of way--as the
stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason of her own having
been at the beer-barrel--solemnly, miss, as I hope to go to heaven,
there was nothing of the sort about him.
"He went into the dining-room, and mistress, who had been up stairs
to see about the baby, went down to him; and there I heard them
talking as pleasant and as natural as they always were together.
Not one of them had the smallest sense of trouble hanging over
them; and they put away both the decanters and cruets, and came up
to bed in their proper order, the master stopping down just to
finish his cigar and see to the doors and the bringing up the
silver, because there was no man-servant now. And I heard him
laughing at some little joke he made as he went into the bedroom.
A happier household never went to bed, nor one with better hopes of
a happy time to come. And the baby slept beside his parents in his
little cot, as his mother liked to have him, with his blessed mouth
wide open.
"Now we three (cook and Susan and myself) were accustomed to have a
good time of it whenever the master first came home and the
mistress was taken up with him. We used to count half an hour more
in bed, without any of that wicked bell-clack, and then go on to
things according to their order, without any body to say any thing.
Accordingly we were all snug in bed, and turning over for another
tuck of sleep, when there came a most vicious ringing of the outer
bell. 'You get up, Susan,' I heard the cook say, for there only
was a door between us; and Susan said, 'Blest if I will! Only
Tuesday you put me down about it when the baker came.' Not a peg
would either of them stir, no more than to call names on one
another; so I slipped on my things, with the bell going clatter all
the while, like the day of judgment. I felt it to be hard upon me,
and I went down cross a little--just enough to give it well to a
body I were not afraid of.
"But the Lord in His mercy remember me, miss! When I opened the
door, I had no blood left. There stood two men, with a hurdle on
their shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging
down, and the front of it slouching, like a sack that has been
stolen from; and behind it there was an authority with two buttons
on his back, and he waited for me to say something; but to do so
was beyond me. Not a bit of caution or of fear about my sham
dress-up, as the bad folk put it afterward; the whole of such
thoughts was beyond me outright, and no thought of any thing came
inside me, only to wait and wonder.
"'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who
seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young
woman, don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the
parish will be here, and the boys that come hankering after it.
You be off!' he cried out to a boy who was calling some more round
the corner. 'Now, young woman, we must come in if you please, and
the least said the soonest mended.'
"'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as
nigh as may be, any day or night before new moon. 'Oh, Mr.
Constable, Mr. Rural Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you
ever had a wife, Sir.' Now even this was turned against us as if I
had expected it. They said that I must have known who it was, and
to a certain length so I did, miss, but only by the dress and the
manner of the corpse, and lying with an attitude there was no
contradicting.
"I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed. My
mind was gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it. However, I
had thought enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other
foolish girls, who would have set up bellowing. Having years to
deal with little ones brings knowledge of the rest to us. I think
that I must have gone to master's door, where Susan's orders were
to put his shaving water in a tin, and fetched him out, with no
disturbance, only in his dressing-gown. And when I told him what
it was, his rosy color turned like sheets, and he just said,
'Hush!' and nothing more. And guessing what he meant, I ran and
put my things on properly.
"But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I
was fit for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their
tongues out for their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day
with. And I do assure you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of
your coming, though unknown whether male or female, but both most
inconvenient then, with things in such a state of things. You have
much to answer for, miss, about it; but how was you to help it,
though?
"The tool-shed door was too narrow to let the hurdle and the body
in, and finding some large sea-kale pots standing out of use
against the door, the two men (who were tired with the weight and
fright, I dare say) set down their burden upon these, under a row
of hollyhocks, at the end of the row of bee-hives. And here they
wiped their foreheads with some rags they had for handkerchiefs, or
one of them with his own sleeve, I should say, and, gaining their
breath, they began to talk with the boldness of the sunrise over
them. But Mr. Rural Polishman, as he was called in those parts,
was walking up and down on guard, and despising of their foolish
words.
"My master, the Captain, your father, miss, came out of a window
and down the cross-walk, while I was at the green door peeping, for
I thought that I might be wanted, if only to take orders what was
to be done inside. The constable stiffly touched his hat, and
marched to the head of the hurdle, and said,
"'Do you know this gentleman?'
"Your father took no more notice of him than if he had been a stiff
hollyhock, which he might have resembled if he had been good-
looking. The Captain thought highly of discipline always, and no
kinder gentleman could there be to those who gave his dues to him.
But that man's voice had a low and dirty impertinent sort of a
twang with it. Nothing could have been more unlucky. Every thing
depended on that fellow in an ignorant neighborhood like that; and
his lordship, for such he was now, of course, would not even deign
to answer him. He stood over his head in his upright way by a good
foot, and ordered him here and there, as the fellow had been
expecting, I do believe, to order his lordship. And that made the
bitterest enemy of him, being newly sent into these parts, and
puffed up with authority. And the two miller's men could not help
grinning, for he had waved them about like a pair of dogs.
"But to suppose that my master 'was unmoved, and took it brutally'
(as that wretch of a fellow swore afterward), only shows what a
stuck-up dolt he was. For when my master had examined his father,
and made his poor body be brought in and spread on the couch in the
dining-room, and sent me hot-foot for old Dr. Diggory down at the
bottom of Shoxford, Susan peeped in through the crack of the door,
with the cook to hold her hand behind, and there she saw the
Captain on his knees at the side of his father's corpse, not saying
a word, only with his head down. And when the doctor came back
with me, with his night-gown positive under his coat, the first
thing he said was, 'My dear Sir--my lord, I mean--don't take on so;
such things will always happen in this world;' which shows that my
master was no brute.
"Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any
pride and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart,
and he said words fit to hang him:
"'This is my doing! There is no one else to blame. If my father
is dead, I have killed him!'
"Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a
winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage
was crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their
faces. And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that
the Captain had murdered his father. The milk-man stood there with
his yoke and cans, and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and,
not being able to hide himself plainly, he pulled out his slate and
began to make his bill.
"'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the
dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead
with all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies
at the depth of his voice and his stature. Then he bolted the
door, with only our own people and the doctor and the constable
inside. Your mother was sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear,
having had a very tiring day the day before, and being well away
from the noise of the passage, as well as at a time when they must
sleep whenever sleep will come, miss. Bless her gentle heart, what
a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!
"All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had
happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead. All of us
thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased
the Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden
heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having
any flow of blood in it. But now, while your father was gone up
stairs--for he knew that his father was dead enough--to be sure
that your mother was quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for
trouble, and while I was run away to stop the ranting of the
children, old Dr. Diggory and that rural officer were handling poor
Lord Castlewood. They set him to their liking, and they cut his
clothes off--so Susan told me afterward--and then they found why
they were forced to do so, which I need not try to tell you, miss.
Only they found that he was not dead from any wise visitation, but
because he had been shot with a bullet through his heart.
"Old Dr. Diggory came out shaking, and without any wholesome sense
to meet what had arisen, after all his practice with dead men, and
he called out 'Murder!' with a long thing in his hand, till my
master leaped down the stairs, twelve at a time, and laid his
strong hand on the old fool's mouth.
"'Would you kill my wife?' he said; 'you shall not kill my wife.'
"'Captain Castlewood,' the constable answered, pulling out his
staff importantly, 'consider yourself my prisoner.'
"The Captain could have throttled him with one hand, and Susan
thought he would have done it. But, instead of that, he said,
'Very well; do your duty. But let me see what you mean by it.'
Then he walked back again to the body of his father, and saw that
he had been murdered.
"But, oh, Miss Erema, you are so pale! Not a bit of food have you
had for hours. I ought not to have told you such a deal of it to
once. Let me undo all your things, my dear, and give you something
cordial; and then lie down and sleep a bit."
"No, thank you, nurse," I answered, calling all my little courage
back. "No sleep for me until I know every word. And to think of
all my father had to see and bear! I am not fit to be his
daughter."
CHAPTER XXV
BETSY'S TALE--(Concluded.)
"Well, now," continued Mrs. Strouss, as soon as I could persuade
her to go on, "if I were to tell you every little thing that went
on among them, miss, I should go on from this to this day week, or
I might say this day fortnight, and then not half be done with it.
And the worst of it is that those little things make all the odds
in a case of that sort, showing what the great things were. But
only a counselor at the Old Bailey could make head or tail of the
goings on that followed.
"For some reason of his own, unknown to any living being but
himself, whether it were pride (as I always said) or something
deeper (as other people thought), he refused to have any one on
earth to help him, when he ought to have had the deepest lawyer to
be found. The constable cautioned him to say nothing, as it seems
is laid down in their orders, for fear of crimination. And he
smiled at this, with a high contempt, very fine to see, but not
bodily wise. But even that jack-in-office could perceive that the
poor Captain thought of his sick wife up stairs, and his little
children, ten times for one thought he ever gave to his own
position. And yet I must tell you that he would have no denial,
but to know what it was that had killed his parent. When old Dr.
Diggory's hands were shaking so that his instrument would not bite
on the thing lodged in his lordship's back, after passing through
and through him, and he was calling for somebody to run for his
assistant, who do you think did it for him, Miss Erema? As sure as
I sit here, the Captain! His face was like a rock, and his hands
no less; and he said, 'Allow me, doctor. I have been in action.'
And he fetched out the bullet--which showed awful nerve, according
to my way of thinking--as if he had been a man with three rows of
teeth.
"'This bullet is just like those of my own pistol!' he cried, and
he sat down hard with amazement. You may suppose how this went
against him, when all he desired was to know and tell the truth;
and people said that of course he got it out, after a bottleful of
doctors failed, because he knew best how it was put in.'
"'I shall now go and see the place, if you please, or whether you
please or not,' my master said. 'Constable, you may come and point
it out, unless you prefer going to your breakfast. My word is
enough that I shall not run away. Otherwise, as you have acted on
your own authority, I shall act on mine, and tie you until you have
obtained a warrant. Take your choice, my man; and make it quickly,
while I offer it.'
"The rural polishman stared at this, being used on the other hand
to be made much of. But seeing how capable the Captain was of
acting up to any thing, he made a sulky scrape, and said, 'Sir, as
you please for the present,' weighting his voice on those last
three words, as much as to say, 'Pretty soon you will be
handcuffed.' 'Then,' said my master, 'I shall also insist on the
presence of two persons, simply to use their eyes without any fear
or favor. One is my gardener, a very honest man, but apt to be
late in the morning. The other is a faithful servant, who has been
with us for several years. Their names are Jacob Rigg and Betsy
Bowen. You may also bring two witnesses, if you choose. And the
miller's men, of course, will come. But order back all others.'
"'That is perfectly fair and straightforward, my lord,' the
constable answered, falling naturally into abeyance to orders. 'I
am sure that all of us wishes your lordship kindly out of this rum
scrape. But my duty is my duty.'
"With a few more words we all set forth, six in number, and no
more; for the constable said that the miller's men, who had first
found the late Lord Castlewood, were witnesses enough for him. And
Jacob Rigg, whose legs were far apart (as he said) from trenching
celery, took us through the kitchen-garden, and out at a gap, which
saved every body knowing.
"Then we passed through a copse or two, and across a meadow, and
then along the turnpike-road, as far as now I can remember. And
along that we went to a stile on the right, without any house for a
long way off. And from that stile a foot-path led down a slope of
grass land to the little river, and over a hand-bridge, and up
another meadow full of trees and bushes, to a gate which came out
into the road again a little to this side of the Moonstock Inn,
saving a quarter of a mile of road, which ran straight up the
valley and turned square at the stone bridge to get to the same
inn.
"I can not expect to be clear to you, miss, though I see it all now
as I saw it then, every tree, and hump, and hedge of it; only about
the distances from this to that, and that to the other, they would
be beyond me. You must be on the place itself; and I never could
carry distances--no, nor even clever men, I have heard my master
say. But when he came to that stile he stopped and turned upon all
of us clearly, and as straight as any man of men could be. 'Here I
saw my father last, at a quarter past ten o'clock last night, or
within a few minutes of that time. I wished to see him to his inn,
but he would not let me do so, and he never bore contradiction. He
said that he knew the way well, having fished more than thirty
years ago up and down this stream. He crossed this stile, and we
shook hands over it, and the moon being bright, I looked into his
face, and he said, "My boy, God bless you!" Knowing his short
ways, I did not even look after him, but turned away, and went
straight home along this road. Upon my word as an Englishman, and
as an officer of her Majesty, that is all I know of it. Now let us
go on to the--to the other place.
"We all of us knew in our hearts, I am sure, that the Captain spoke
the simple truth, and his face was grand as he looked at us. But
the constable thought it his duty to ask,
"'Did you hear no sound of a shot, my lord? For he fell within a
hundred yards of this.'
"'I heard no sound of any shot whatever. I heard an owl hooting as
I went home, and then the rattle of a heavy wagon, and the bells of
horses. I have said enough. Let us go forward.'
"We obeyed him at once; and even the constable looked right and
left, as if he had been wrong. He signed to the miller's man to
lead the way, and my lord walked proudly after him. The path was
only a little narrow track, with the grass, like a front of hair,
falling over it on the upper side and on the under, dropping away
like side curls; such a little path that I was wondering how a
great lord could walk over it. Then we came down a steep place to
a narrow bridge across a shallow river--abridge made of only two
planks and a rail, with a prop or two to carry them. And one end
of the handrail was fastened into a hollow and stubby old hawthorn-
tree, overhanging the bridge and the water a good way. And just
above this tree, and under its shadow, there came a dry cut into
the little river, not more than a yard or two above the wooden
bridge, a water-trough such as we have in Wales, miss, for the
water to run in, when the farmer pleases; but now there was no
water in it, only gravel.
"The cleverest of the miller's men, though, neither of them had
much intellect, stepped down at a beck from the constable, right
beneath the old ancient tree, and showed us the marks on the grass
and the gravel made by his lordship where he fell and lay. And it
seemed that he must have fallen off the bridge, yet not into the
water, but so as to have room for his body, if you see, miss,
partly on the bank, and partly in the hollow of the meadow trough.
"'Have you searched the place well?' the Captain asked. 'Have you
found any weapon or implement?'
"'We have found nothing but the corpse, so far,' the constable
answered, in a surly voice, not liking to be taught his business.
'My first duty was to save life, if I could. These men, upon
finding the body, ran for me, and knowing who it was, I came with
it to your house.'
"'You acted for the best, my man. Now search the place carefully,
while I stand here. I am on my parole, I shall not run away.
Jacob, go down and help them.'
"Whether from being in the army, or what, your father always spoke
in such a way that the most stiff-neckedest people began without
thinking to obey him. So the constable and the rest went down,
while the Captain and I stood upon the plank, looking at the four
of them.
"For a long time they looked about, according to their attitudes,
without finding any thing more than the signs of the manner in
which the poor lord fell, and of these the constable pulled out a
book and made a pencil memorial. But presently Jacob, a spry sort
of man, cried, 'Hulloa! whatever have I got hold of here? Many a
good craw-fish have I pulled out from this bank when the water
comes down the gully, but never one exactly like this here afore.'
"'Name of the Lord!' cried the constable, jumping behind the
hawthorn stump; 'don't point it at me, you looby! It's loaded,
loaded one barrel, don't you see? Put it down, with the muzzle
away from me.'
"'Hand it to me, Jacob,' the Captain said. 'You understand a gun,
and this goes off just the same.' Constable Jobbins have no fear.
'Yes, it is exactly as I thought. This pistol is one of the
double-barreled pair which I bought to take to India. The barrels
are rifled; it shoots as true as any rifle, and almost as hard up
to fifty yards. The right barrel has been fired, the other is
still loaded. The bullet I took from my father's body most
certainly came from this pistol.'
"'Can 'e say, can 'e say then, who done it, master?' asked Jacob, a
man very sparing of speech, but ready at a beck to jump at
constable and miller's men, if only law was with him. 'Can 'e give
a clear account, and let me chuck 'un in the river?'
"'No, Jacob, I can do nothing of the kind,' your father answered;
while the rural man came up and faced things, not being afraid of a
fight half so much as he was of an accident; by reason of his own
mother having been blown up by a gunpowder start at Dartford, yet
came down all right, miss, and had him three months afterward,
according to his own confession; nevertheless, he came up now as if
he had always been upright, in the world, and he said, 'My lord,
can you explain all this?'
"Your father looked at him with one of his strange gazes, as if he
were measuring the man while trying his own inward doing of his own
mind. Proud as your father was, as proud as ever can be without
cruelty, it is my firm belief, Miss Erema, going on a woman's
judgment, that if the man's eyes had come up to my master's sense
of what was virtuous, my master would have up and told him the
depth and contents of his mind and heart, although totally gone
beyond him.
"But Jobbins looked back at my lord with a grin, and his little
eyes, hard to put up with. 'Have you nothing to say, my lord?
Then I am afeared I must ask you just to come along of me.' And my
master went with him, miss, as quiet as a lamb; which Jobbins said,
and even Jacob fancied, was a conscience sign of guilt.
"Now after I have told you all this, Miss Erema, you know very
nearly as much as I do. To tell how the grief was broken to your
mother, and what her state of mind was, and how she sat up on the
pillows and cried, while things went on from bad to worse, and a
verdict of 'willful murder' was brought against your father by the
crowner's men, and you come headlong, without so much as the birds
in the ivy to chirp about you, right into the thick of the worst of
it. I do assure you, Miss Erema, when I look at your bright eyes
and clear figure, the Lord in heaven, who has made many cripples,
must have looked down special to have brought you as you are. For
trouble upon trouble fell in heaps, faster than I can wipe my eyes
to think. To begin with, all the servants but myself and gardener
Jacob ran away. They said that the old lord haunted the house, and
walked with his hand in the middle of his heart, pulling out a
bullet if he met any body, and sighing 'murder' three times, till
every hair was crawling. I took it on myself to fetch the Vicar of
the parish to lay the evil spirit, as they do in Wales. A nice
kind gentleman he was as you could see, and wore a velvet skull-
cap, and waited with his legs up. But whether he felt that the
power was not in him, or whether his old lordship was frightened of
the Church, they never made any opportunity between them to meet
and have it out, miss.
"Then it seemed as if Heaven, to avenge his lordship, rained down
pestilence upon that house. A horrible disease, the worst I ever
met, broke out upon the little harmless dears, the pride of my
heart and of every body's eyes, for lovelier or better ones never
came from heaven. They was all gone to heaven in a fortnight and
three days, and laid in the church-yard at one another's side, with
little beds of mould to the measure of their stature, and their
little carts and drums, as they made me promise, ready for the
judgment-day. Oh, my heart was broken, miss, my heart was broken!
I cried so, I thought I could never cry more.
"But when your dear mother, who knew nothing of all this (for we
put all their illness, by the doctor's orders, away at the further
end of the house), when she was a little better of grievous pain
and misery (for being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up
on the pillow, looking like a bride almost, except that she had
what brides hasn't--a little red thing in white flannel at her
side--then she says to me, 'I am ready, Betsy; it is high time for
all of them to see their little sister. They always love the baby
so, whenever there is a new one. And they are such men and women
to it. They have been so good this time that I have never heard
them once. And I am sure that I can trust them, Betsy, not to make
the baby cry. I do so long to see the darlings. Now do not even
whisper to them not to make a noise. They are too good to require
it; and it would hurt their little feelings.'
"I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord
was, than have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the
mother so. She sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the
other round your little head, and her beautiful hair was come out
of its loops, and the color in her cheeks was like a shell. Past
the fringe of the curtain, and behind it too, her soft bright eyes
were a-looking here and there for the first to come in of her
children. The Lord only knows what lies I told her, so as to be
satisfied without them. First I said they were all gone for a
walk; and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and then that
they had got the measles. That last she believed, because it was
worse than what I had said before of them; and she begged to see
Dr. Diggory about it, and I promised that she should as soon as he
had done his dinner. And then, with a little sigh, being very
weak, she went down into her nest again, with only you to keep her
company.
"Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said;
enough for one day at any rate. But there was almost worse to
come. For when I was having a little sit down stairs, with my
supper and half pint of ale (that comes like drawing a long breath
to us when spared out of sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery
now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad business, with only a
little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up the dishes,
there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it for
the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young girl up, by knowing
what their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the
candle-sight of him made my heart go low.
"He had come out of prison; and although not being tried, his
clothes were still in decency, they had great holes in them, and
the gloss all gone to a smell of mere hedges and ditches. The hat
on his head was quite out of the fashion, even if it could be
called a hat at all, and his beautiful beard had no sign of a comb,
and he looked as old again as he had looked a month ago.
"'I know all about it. You need not be afraid,' he said, as I took
him to the breakfast-room, where no one up stairs could hear us.
'I know that my children are all dead and buried, except the one
that was not born yet. Ill news flies quick. I know all about it.
George, Henrietta, Jack, Alf, little Vi, and Tiny. I have seen
their graves and counted them, while the fool of a policeman beat
his gloves through the hedge within a rod of me. Oh yes, I have
much to be thankful for. My life is in my own hand now.'
"'Oh, master; oh, Captain; oh, my lord!' I cried; 'for the sake of
God in heaven, don't talk like that. Think of your sweet wife,
your dear lady.'
"'Betsy,' he answered, with his eyes full upon me, noble, yet
frightful to look at, 'I am come to see my wife. Go and let her
know it, according to your own discretion.'
"My discretion would have been not to let him see her, but go on
and write to her from foreign countries, with the salt sea between
them; but I give you my word that I had no discretion, but from
pity and majesty obeyed him. I knew that he must have broken
prison, and by good rights ought to be starving. But I could no
more offer him the cold ham and pullet than take him by his beard
and shake him.
"'Is he come, at last, at last?' my poor mistress said, whose wits
were wandering after her children. 'At last, at last! Then he
will find them all.'
"'Yes, ma'am, at last, at the last he will,' I answered, while I
thought of the burial service, which I had heard three times in a
week--for the little ones went to their graves in pairs to save
ceremony; likewise of the Epistle of Saint Paul, which is not like
our Lord's way of talking at all, but arguing instead of
comforting. And not to catch her up in that weak state, I said,
'He will find every one of them, ma'am.'
"'Oh, but I want him for himself, for himself, as much as all the
rest put together,' my dear lady said, without listening to me, but
putting her hand to her ear to hearken for even so much as a mouse
on the stairs. 'Do bring him, Betsy; only bring him, Betsy, and
then let me go where my children are.'
"I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have
allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she
could only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her
except only me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words
was impossible. All you did was to lie very quiet, tucked up into
your mother's side; and as regular as the time-piece went, wide
came your eyes and your mouth to be fed. If your nature had been
cross or squally, 'baby's coffin No. 7' would have come after all
the other six, which the thief of a carpenter put down on his bill
as if it was so many shavings.
"Well, now, to tell you the downright truth, I have a lot of work
to do to-morrow, miss, with three basketfuls of washing coming
home, and a man about a tap that leaks and floods the inside of the
fender; and if I were to try to put before you the way that those
two for the last time of their lives went on to one another--the
one like a man and the other like a woman, full of sobs and
choking--my eyes would be in such a state to-morrow that the whole
of them would pity and cheat me. And I ought to think of you as
well, miss, who has been sadly harrowed listening when you was not
born yet. And to hear what went on, full of weeping, when yourself
was in the world, and able to cry for yourself, and all done over
your own little self, would leave you red eyes and no spirit for
the night, and no appetite in the morning; and so I will pass it
all over, if you please, and let him go out of the backdoor again.
"This he was obliged to do quick, and no mistake, glad as he might
have been to say more words, because the fellows who call
themselves officers, without any commission, were after him. False
it was to say, as was said, that he got out of Winchester jail
through money. That story was quite of a piece with the rest. His
own strength and skill it was that brought him out triumphantly, as
the scratches on his hands and cheeks might show. He did it for
the sake of his wife, no doubt. When he heard that the children
were all in their graves, and their mother in the way to follow
them, madness was better than his state of mind, as the officers
told me when they could not catch him--and sorry they would have
been to do it, I believe.
"To overhear my betters is the thing of all things most against my
nature; and my poor lady being unfit to get up, there was nothing
said on the landing, which is the weakest part of gentlefolks.
They must have said 'Good-by' to one another quite in silence, and
the Captain, as firm a man as ever lived, had lines on his face
that were waiting for tears, if nature should overcome bringing up.
Then I heard the words, 'for my sake,' and the other said, 'for
your sake,' a pledge that passed between them, making breath more
long than life is. But when your poor father was by the back-door,
going out toward the woods and coppices, he turned sharp round, and
he said, 'Betsy Bowen!' and I answered, 'Yes, at your service,
Sir.' 'You have been the best woman in the world,' he said--'the
bravest, best, and kindest. I leave my wife and my last child to
you. The Lord has been hard on me, but He will spare me those two.
I do hope and believe He will.'
"We heard a noise of horses in the valley, and the clank of swords--
no doubt the mounted police from Winchester a-crossing of the
Moonstock Bridge to search our house for the runaway. And the
Captain took my hand, and said, 'I trust them to you. Hide the
clothes I took off, that they may not know I have been here. I
trust my wife and little babe to you, and may God bless you,
Betsy!'
"He had changed all his clothes, and he looked very nice, but a
sadder face was never seen. As he slipped through the hollyhocks I
said to myself, 'There goes a broken-hearted man, and he leaves a
broken heart behind.' And your dear mother died on the Saturday
night. Oh my! oh my! how sad it was!"
CHAPTER XXVI
AT THE BANK
In telling that sad tale my faithful and soft-hearted nurse had
often proved her own mistake in saying, as she did, that tears can
ever be exhausted. And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry
for eager listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted
each sad fact as it went by. At any rate, be it this way or that,
a heavy and sore heart was left me, too distracted for asking
questions, and almost too depressed to grieve.
In the morning Mrs. Strouss was bustling here and there and every
where, and to look at her nice Welsh cheeks and aprons, and to hear
how she scolded the butcher's boy, nobody would for a moment
believe that her heart was deeper than her skin, as the saying of
the west country is. Major Hockin had been to see me last night,
for he never forgot a promise, and had left me in good hands, and
now he came again in the morning. According to his usual way of
taking up an opinion, he would not see how distracted I was, and
full of what I had heard overnight, but insisted on dragging me off
to the bank, that being in his opinion of more importance than old
stories. I longed to ask Betsy some questions which had been
crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while I lay awake at night;
however, I was obliged to yield to the business of the morning, and
the good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world; and he
really gave me no time to think.
"Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of
it," he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he
came in, and had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us. "You
must never think twice of what old women say" (Mrs. Strouss was
some twenty years younger than himself); "they always go prating
and finding mares'-nests, and then they always cry. Now did she
cry, Erema?"
I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, "No, not
one drop;" but the truth was against me, and I said, "How could she
help it?"
"Exactly!" the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought
he was ordered to stop. "No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do
it. My dear, I beg your pardon, but you are so very simple! You
have not been among the eye-openers of the west. This comes of the
obsolete Uncle Sam."
"I would rather be simple than 'cute!'" I replied; "and my own
Uncle Sam will be never obsolete."
Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this
far country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and
with this, which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand
and stood upon the footway of a narrow and crowded lane.
"Move on! move on!" cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at
intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at
him. But he only said, "Now move on, will you?" without any wrath,
and as if he were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing
still. Nobody heeded him any more than if he had said, "I am
starving," but it seemed a rude thing among ladies. Before I had
time to think more about this--for I always like to think of
things--I was led through a pair of narrow swinging doors, and down
a close alley between two counters full of people paying and
receiving money. The Major, who always knew how to get on, found a
white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered to him
in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other
before, and the white-haired gentleman gazed at me as sternly as if
I were a bank-note for at least a thousand pounds; and then he
said, "Step this way, young lady. Major Hockin, step this way,
Sir."
The young lady "stepped that way" in wonder as to what English
English is, and then we were shown into a sacred little room, where
the daylight had glass reflectors for it, if it ever came to use
them. But as it cared very little to do this, from angular
disabilities, three bright gas-lights were burning in soft covers,
and fed the little room with a rich, sweet glow. And here shone
one of the partners of the bank, a very pleasant-looking gentleman,
and very nicely dressed.
"Major Hockin," he said, after looking at the card, "will you
kindly sit down, while I make one memorandum? I had the pleasure
of knowing your uncle well--at least I believe that the late Sir
Rufus was your uncle."
"Not so," replied the Major, well pleased, however. "I fear that I
am too old to have had any uncle lately. Sir Rufus Hockin was my
first cousin."
"Oh, indeed! To be sure, I should have known it, but Sir Rufus
being much your senior, the mistake was only natural. Now what can
I do to serve you, or perhaps this young lady--Miss Hockin, I
presume?"
"No," said his visitor, "not Miss Hockin. I ought to have
introduced her, but for having to make my own introduction. Mr.
Shovelin, this lady is Miss Erema Castlewood, the only surviving
child of the late Captain George Castlewood, properly speaking,
Lord Castlewood."
Mr. Shovelin had been looking at me with as much curiosity as good
manners and his own particular courtesy allowed. And I fancied
that he felt that I could not be a Hockin.
"Oh, dear, dear me!" was all he said, though he wanted to say,
"God bless me!" or something more sudden and stronger. "Lord
Castlewood's daughter--poor George Castlewood! My dear young lady,
is it possible?"
"Yes, I am my father's child," I said; "and I am proud to hear that
I am like him."
"That you well may be," he answered, putting on his spectacles.
"You are astonished at my freedom, perhaps; you will allow for it,
or at least, you will not be angry with me, when you know that your
father was my dearest friend at Harrow; and that when his great
trouble fell upon him--"
Here Mr. Shovelin stopped, as behooves a man who begins to outrun
himself. He could not tell me that it was himself who had found
all the money for my father's escape, which cost much cash as well
as much good feeling. Neither did I, at the time, suspect it,
being all in the dark upon such points. Not knowing what to say, I
looked from the banker to the Major, and back again.
"Can you tell me the exact time?" the latter asked. "I am due in
the Temple at 12.30, and I never am a minute late, whatever
happens."
"You will want a swift horse," Mr. Shovelin answered, "or else this
will be an exception to your rule. It is twenty-one minutes past
twelve now."
"May I leave my charge to you, then, for a while? She will be very
quiet; she is always so. Erema, will you wait for me?"
I was not quick enough then to see that this was arranged between
them. Major Hockin perceived that Mr. Shovelin wished to have a
talk with me about dearer matters than money, having children of
his own, and being (as his eyes and forehead showed) a man of
peculiar views, perhaps, but clearly of general good-will.
"In an hour, in an hour, in less than an hour"--the Major
intensified his intentions always--"in three-quarters of an hour I
shall be back. Meanwhile, my dear, you will sit upon a stool, and
not say a word, nor make any attempt to do any thing every body is
not used to."
This vexed me, as if I were a savage here; and I only replied with
a very gentle bow, being glad to see his departure; for Major
Hockin was one of those people, so often to be met with, whom any
one likes or dislikes according to the changes of their behavior.
But Mr. Shovelin was different from that.
"Miss Castlewood, take this chair," he said; "a hard one, but
better than a stool, perhaps. Now how am I to talk to you--as an
inquirer upon business matters, or as the daughter of my old
friend? Your smile is enough. Well, and you must talk to me in
the same unreasonable manner. That being clearly established
between us, let us proceed to the next point. Your father, my old
friend, wandered from the track, and unfortunately lost his life in
a desolate part of America."
"No; oh no. It was nothing like that. He might have been alive,
and here at this moment, if I had not drunk and eaten every bit and
drop of his."
"Now don't, my dear child, don't be so romantic--I mean, look at
things more soberly. You did as you were ordered, I have no doubt;
George Castlewood always would have that. He was a most commanding
man. You do not quite resemble him in that respect, I think."
"Oh, but did he do it, did he do it?" I cried out. "You were at
school with him, and knew his nature. Was it possible for him to
do it, Sir?"
"As possible as it is for me to go down to Sevenoaks and shoot my
dear old father, who is spending a green and agreeable old age
there. Not that your grandfather, if I may say it without causing
pain to you, was either green or agreeable. He was an uncommonly
sharp old man; I might even say a hard one. As you never saw him,
you will not think me rude in saying that much. Your love, of
course, is for your father; and if your father had had a father of
larger spirit about money, he might have been talking to me
pleasantly now, instead of--instead of all these sad things."
"Please not to slip away from me," I said, bluntly, having so often
met with that. "You believe, as every good person does, that my
father was wholly innocent. But do tell me who could have done it
instead. Somebody must have done it; that seems clear."
"Yes," replied Mr. Shovelin, with a look of calm consideration;
"somebody did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the
whole affair. 'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say. Two persons only
could have had any motive, so far as wealth and fortune go. The
first and most prominent, your father, who, of course, would come
into every thing (which made the suspicion so hot and strong); and
the other, a very nice gentleman, whom it is wholly impossible to
suspect."
"Are you sure of that? People have more than suspected--they have
condemned--my father. After that, I can suspect any body. Who is
it? Please to tell me."
"It is the present Lord Castlewood, as he is beginning to be
called. He would not claim the title, or even put forward his
right in any way, until he had proof of your dear father's death;
and even then he behaved so well--"
"He did it! he did it!" I cried, in hot triumph. "My father's name
shall be clear of it. Can there be any doubt that he did it? How
very simple the whole of it becomes! Nothing astonishes me, except
the stupidity of people. He had every thing to gain, and nothing
to lose--a bad man, no doubt--though I never heard of him. And
putting it all on my father, of course, to come in himself, and
abide his time, till the misery killed my father. How simple, how
horribly simple, it becomes!"
"You are much too quick, too hot, too sudden. Excuse me a minute"--
as a silver bell struck--"I am wanted in the next room. But
before I go, let me give you a glass of cold water, and beg you to
dismiss that new idea from your mind."
I could see, as I took with a trembling hand the water he poured
out for me, that Mr. Shovelin was displeased. His kind and
handsome face grew hard. He had taken me for a nice young lady,
never much above the freezing-point, and he had found me boil over
in a moment. I was sorry to have grieved him; but if he had heard
Betsy Bowen's story, and seen her tell it, perhaps he would have
allowed for me. I sat down again, having risen in my warmth, and
tried to quiet and command myself by thinking of the sad points
only. Of these there were plenty to make pictures of, the like of
which had kept me awake all night; and I knew by this time, from
finding so much more of pity than real sympathy, that men think a
woman may well be all tears, but has no right to even the shadow of
a frown. That is their own prerogative.
And so, when Mr. Shovelin returned, with a bundle of papers which
had also vexed him--to judge by the way in which he threw them
down--I spoke very mildly, and said that I was very sorry for my
display of violence, but that if he knew all, he would pardon me;
and he pardoned me in a moment.
"I was going to tell you, my dear Miss Castlewood," he continued,
gently, "that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which
I think will content you. In the first place, the present Lord
Castlewood is, and always has been, an exemplary man, of great
piety and true gentleness; in the next place, he is an invalid, who
can not walk a mile with a crutch to help him, and so he has been
for a great many years; and lastly, if you have no faith in the
rest, he was in Italy at the time, and remained there for some
years afterward. There he received and sheltered your poor father
after his sad calamity, and was better than a brother to him, as
your father, in a letter to me, declared. So you see that you must
acquit him."
"That is not enough. I would beg his pardon on my knees, since he
helped my father, for he must have thought him innocent. Now, Mr.
Shovelin, you were my father's friend, and you are such a clever
man--"
"How do you know that, young lady? What a hurry you are always
in!"
"Oh, there can be no doubt about it. But you must not ask reasons,
if I am so quick. Now please to tell me what your own conclusion
is. I can talk of it calmly now; yes, quite calmly, because I
never think of any thing else. Only tell me what you really
believe, and I will keep it most strictly to myself."
"I am sure you will do that," he answered, smiling, "not only from
the power of your will, my dear, but also because I have nothing to
say. At first I was strongly inclined to believe (knowing, from my
certainty of your father, that the universal opinion must be wrong)
that the old lord had done it himself; for he always had been of a
headstrong and violent nature, which I am sure will never re-appear
in you. But the whole of the evidence went against this, and
little as I think of evidence, especially at an inquest, your
father's behavior confirmed what was sworn to. Your father knew
that his father had not made away with himself in a moment of
passion, otherwise he was not the man to break prison and fly
trial. He would have said, boldly, 'I am guiltless; there are many
things that I can not explain; I can not help that; I will face it
out. Condemn me, if you like, and I will suffer.' From your own
remembrance of your father's nature, is not that certainly the
course he would have taken?"
"I have not an atom of doubt about it. His flight and persistent
dread of trial puzzle me beyond imagination. Of his life he was
perfectly reckless, except, at least, for my sake."
"I know that he was," Mr. Shovelin replied; "as a boy he was
wonderfully fearless. As a man, with a sweet wife and a lot of
children, he might have begun to be otherwise. But when all those
were gone, and only a poor little baby left--"
"Yes, I suppose I was all that."
"Forgive me. I am looking back at you. Who could dream that you
would ever even live, without kith or kin to care for you? Your
life was saved by some good woman who took you away to Wales. But
when you were such a poor little relic, and your father could
scarcely have seen you, to have such a mite left must have been
almost a mockery of happiness. That motive could not have been
strong enough to prevent a man of proud honor from doing what honor
at once demanded. Your father would have returned and surrendered
as soon as he heard of his dear wife's death, if in the balance
there had been only you."
"Yes, Mr. Shovelin, perhaps he would. I was never very much as a
counter-balance. Yet my father loved me." I could have told him
of the pledge exchanged--"For my sake," and, "Yes, for your sake,"
with love and wedded honor set to fight cold desolate repute--but I
did not say a word about it.
"He loved you afterward, of course. But a man who has had seven
children is not enthusiastic about a baby. There must have been a
larger motive."
"But when I was the only one left alive. Surely I became valuable
then. I can not have been such a cipher."
"Yes, for a long time you would have been," replied the Saturnian
banker. "I do not wish to disparage your attractions when you were
a fortnight old. They may have begun already to be irresistible.
Excuse me; you have led me into the light vein, when speaking of a
most sad matter. You must blame your self-assertion for it. All I
wish to convey to you is my belief that something wholly unknown to
us, some dark mystery of which we have no inkling, lies at the
bottom of this terrible affair. Some strange motive there must
have been, strong enough even to overcome all ordinary sense of
honor, and an Englishman's pride in submitting to the law, whatever
may be the consequence. Consider that his 'flight from justice,'
as it was called, of course, by every one, condemned his case and
ruined his repute. Even for that he would not have cared so much
as for his own sense of right. And though he was a very lively
fellow, as I first remember him, full of tricks and jokes, and so
on, which in this busy age are out of date, I am certain that he
always had a stern sense of right. One never knows how love
affairs and weakness about children may alter almost any man; but
my firm conviction is that my dear old school-fellow, George
Castlewood, even with a wife and lovely children hanging altogether
upon his life, not only would not have broken jail, but would
calmly have given up his body to be hanged--pardon me, my dear, for
putting it so coarsely--if there had not been something paramount
to override even apparent honor. What it can have been I have no
idea, and I presume you have none."
"None whatever," I said at once, in answer to his inquiring gaze.
"I am quite taken by surprise; I never even thought of such a
thing. It has always seemed to me so natural that my dear father,
being shamefully condemned, because appearances were against him,
and nobody could enter into him, should, for the sake of his wife
and children, or even of one child like me, depart or banish
himself, or emigrate, or, as they might call it, run away.
Knowing that he never could have a fair trial, it was the only
straightforward and good and affectionate thing for him to do."
"You can not see things as men see them. We must not expect it of
you," Mr. Shovelin answered, with a kind but rather too superior
smile, which reminded me a little of dear Uncle Sam when he
listened to what, in his opinion, was only female reason; "but,
dear me, here is Major Hockin come! Punctuality is the soul of
business."
"So I always declare," cried the Major, who was more than three-
quarters of an hour late, for which in my heart I thanked him. "My
watch keeps time to a minute, Sir, and its master to a second.
Well, I hope you have settled all questions of finance, and endowed
my young maid with a fortune."
"So far from that," Mr. Shovelin replied, in a tone very different
from that he used to me, "we have not even said one word of
business; all that has been left for your return. Am I to
understand that you are by appointment or relationship the guardian
of this young lady?"
"God forbid!" cried Major Hockin, shortly. I thought it very rude
of him, yet I could not help smiling to see how he threw his
glasses up and lifted his wiry crest of hair. "Not that she is
bad, I mean, but good, very good; indeed, I may say the very best
girl ever known outside of my own family. My cousin, Colonel
Gundry, who owns an immense estate in the most auriferous district
of all California, but will not spoil his splendid property by
mining, he will--he will tell you the very same thing, Sir."
"I am very glad to hear it," said the banker, smiling at me, while
I wondered what it was, but hoped that it meant my praises. "Now I
really fear that I must be very brief, though the daughter of my
oldest friend may well be preferred to business. But now we will
turn at once to business, if you please."
CHAPTER XXVII
COUSIN MONTAGUE
Mr. Shovelin went to a corner of the room, which might be called
his signal-box, having a little row of port-holes like a toy
frigate or accordion, and there he made sounds which brought steps
very promptly, one clerk carrying a mighty ledger, and the other a
small strong-box.
"No plate," Major Hockin whispered to me, shaking his gray crest
with sorrow; "but there may be diamonds, you know, Erema. One
ounce of diamonds is worth a ton of plate."
"No," said Mr. Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, "I fear that
you will find nothing of mercantile value. Thank you, Mr.
Robinson; by-and-by perhaps we shall trouble you. Strictly
speaking, perhaps I should require the presence of your father's
lawyer, or of some one producing probate, ere I open this box, Miss
Castlewood. But having you here, and Major Hockin, and knowing
what I do about the matter (which is one of personal confidence), I
will dispense with formalities. We have given your father's
solicitor notice of this deposit, and requested his attention, but
he never has deigned to attend to it; so now we will dispense with
him. You see that the seal is unbroken; you know your father's
favorite seal, no doubt. The key is nothing; it was left to my
charge. You wish that I should open this?"
Certainly I did, and the banker split the seal with an ebony-
handled paper-knife, and very soon unlocked the steel-ribbed box,
whose weight was chiefly of itself. Some cotton-wool lay on the
top to keep the all-penetrative dust away, and then a sheet of blue
foolscap paper, partly covered with clear but crooked writing, and
under that some little twists of silver paper, screwed as if there
had been no time to tie them, and a packet of letters held together
by a glittering bracelet.
"Poor fellow!" Mr. Shovelin said, softly, while I held my breath,
and the Major had the courtesy to be silent. "This is his will; of
no value, I fear, in a pecuniary point of view, but of interest to
you his daughter. Shall I open it, Miss Castlewood, or send it to
his lawyers?"
"Open it, and never think of them," said I. "Like the rest, they
have forsaken him. Please to read it to yourself, and then tell
us."
"Oh, I wish I had known this before!" cried the banker, after a
rapid glance or two. "Very kind, very flattering, I am sure! Yes,
I will do my duty by him; I wish there was more to be done in the
case. He has left me sole executor, and trustee of all his
property, for the benefit of his surviving child. Yet he never
gave me the smallest idea of expecting me to do this for him.
Otherwise, of course, I should have had this old box opened years
ago."
"We must look at things as they are," said Major Hockin, for I
could say nothing. "The question is, what do you mean to do now?"
"Nothing whatever," said the banker, crisply, being displeased at
the other's tone; and then, seeing my surprise, he addressed
himself to me: "Nothing at present, but congratulate myself upon
my old friend's confidence, and, as Abernethy said, 'take advice.'
A banker must never encroach upon the province of the lawyer. But
so far as a layman may judge, Major Hockin, I think you will have
to transfer to me the care of this young lady."
"I shall be only too happy, I assure you," the Major answered,
truthfully. "My wife has a great regard for her, and so have I--
the very greatest, the strongest regard, and warm parental
feelings; as you know, Erema. But--but, I am not so young as I
was; and I have to develop my property."
"Of which she no longer forms a part," Mr. Shovelin answered, with
a smile at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the
other's calm abandonment. "You will find me prompt and proud to
claim her, as soon as I am advised that this will is valid; and
that I shall learn to-morrow."
In spite of pride, or by its aid, my foolish eyes were full of
tears, and I gave him a look of gratitude which reminded him of my
father, as he said in so many words.
"Oh, I hope it is valid! How I hope it is!" I exclaimed, turning
round to the Major, who smiled rather grimly, and said he hoped so
too.
"But surely," he continued, "as we are all here, we should not
neglect the opportunity of inspecting the other contents of this
box. To me it appears that we are bound to do so; that it is our
plain duty to ascertain--Why, there might even be a later will.
Erema, my dear, you must be most anxious to get to the bottom of
it."
So I was, but desired even more that his curiosity should be
foiled. "We must leave that to Mr. Shovelin," I said.
"Then for the present we will seal it down again," the banker
answered, quietly; "we can see that there is no other will, and a
later one would scarcely be put under this. The other little
packets, whatever they may be, are objects of curiosity, perhaps,
rather than of importance. They will keep till we have more
leisure."
"We have taken up a great deal of your time, Sir, I am sure," said
the Major, finding that he could take no more. "We ought to be,
and we are, most grateful."
"Well," the banker answered, as we began to move, "such things do
not happen every day. But there is no friend like an old friend,
Erema, as I mean to call you now. I was to have been your
godfather; but I fear that you never have been baptized."
"What!" cried the Major, staring at us both. "Is such a thing
possible in a Christian land? Oh, how I have neglected my duty to
the Church! Come back with me to Bruntsea, and my son shall do it.
The church there is under my orders, I should hope; and we will
have a dinner party afterward. What a horrible neglect of duty!"
"But how could I help it?" I exclaimed, with some terror at Major
Hockin's bristling hair. "I can not remember--I am sure I can not
say. It may have been done in France, or somewhere, if there was
no time in England. At any rate, my father is not to be blamed."
"Papistical baptism is worse than none," the Major said,
impressively. "Never mind, my dear, we will make that all right.
You shall not be a savage always. We will take the opportunity to
change your name. Erema is popish and outlandish; one scarcely
knows how to pronounce it. You shall have a good English Christian
name--Jemima, Jane, or Sophy. Trust me to know a good name. Trust
me."
"Jemima!" I cried. "Oh, Mr. Shovelin, save me from ever being
called Jemima! Rather would I never be baptized at all."
"I am no judge of names," he answered, smiling, as he shook hands
with us; "but, unless I am a very bad judge of faces, you will be
called just what you please."
"And I please to be called what my father called me. It may be
unlucky, as a gentleman told me, who did not know how to pronounce
it. However, it will do very well for me. You wish to see me,
then, to-morrow, Mr. Shovelin?"
"If you please; but later in the day, when I am more at leisure. I
do not run away very early. Come at half past four to this door,
and knock. I hear every sound at this door in my room; and the
place will be growing quiet then."
He showed us out into a narrow alley through a heavy door sheathed
with iron, and soon we recovered the fair light of day, and the
brawl and roar of a London street.
"Now where shall we go?" the Major asked, as soon as he had found a
cab again; for he was very polite in that way. "You kept early
hours with your 'uncle Sam,' as you call Colonel Gundry, a slow-
witted man, but most amusing when he likes, as slow-witted men very
often are. Now will you come and dine with me? I can generally
dine, as you, with virtuous indignation, found out at Southampton.
But we are better friends now, Miss Heathen."
"Yes, I have more than I can ever thank you for," I answered, very
gravely, for I never could become jocose to order, and sadness
still was uppermost. "I will go where you like. I am quite at
your orders, because Betsy Bowen is busy now. She will not have
done her work till six o'clock."
"Well done!" he cried. "Bravo, Young America! Frankness is the
finest of all good manners. And what a lot of clumsy deception it
saves! Then let us go and dine. I will imitate your truthfulness.
It was two words for myself, and one for you. The air of London
always makes me hungry after too much country air. It is wrong
altogether, but I can not help it. And going along, I smell hungry
smells coming out of deep holes with a plate at the top. Hungry I
mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation is--when a man
would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken his own nip any
where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick this, and
poke that, and push away the other, may I be d----d--my dear, I beg
your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped Cockle,' at
the bottom of St. Ventricle Lane, you know."
This place seemed, from what the Major said, to have earned repute
for something special, something esteemed by the very clever
people, and only to be found in true virtue here. And he told me
that luxury and self-indulgence were the greatest sins of the
present age, and how he admired a man who came here to protest
against Epicureans, by dining (liquors not included) for the sum of
three and sixpence.
All this, no doubt, was wise and right; but I could not attend to
it properly now, and he might take me where he would, and have all
the talking to himself, according to his practice. And I might not
even have been able to say what this temple of bones and cockles
was like, except for a little thing which happened there. The
room, at the head of a twisting staircase, was low and dark, and
furnished almost like a farmhouse kitchen. It had no carpet, nor
even a mat, but a floor of black timber, and a ceiling colored
blue, with stars and comets, and a full moon near the fire-place.
On either side of the room stood narrow tables endwise to the
walls, inclosed with high-backed seats like settles, forming thus a
double set of little stalls or boxes, with scarcely space enough
between for waiters, more urgent than New York firemen, to push
their steaming and breathless way.
"Square or round, miss?" said one of them to me as soon as the
Major had set me on a bench, and before my mind had time to rally
toward criticism of the knives and forks, which deprecated any such
ordeal; and he cleverly whipped a stand for something dirty, over
something still dirtier, on the cloth.
"I don't understand what you mean," I replied to his highly zealous
aspect, while the Major sat smiling dryly at my ignorance, which
vexed me. "I have never received such a question before. Major
Hockin, will you kindly answer him?"
"Square," said the Major; "square for both." And the waiter, with
a glance of pity at me, hurried off to carry out his order.
"Erema, your mind is all up in the sky," my companion began to
remonstrate. "You ought to know better after all your travels."
"Then the sky should not fall and confuse me so," I said, pointing
to the Milky Way, not more than a yard above me; "but do tell me
what he meant, if you can. Is it about the formation of the soup?"
"Hush, my dear. Soup is high treason here until night, when they
make it of the leavings. His honest desire was to know whether you
would have a grilled bone of mutton, which is naturally round, you
know, or of beef, which, by the same law of nature, seems always to
be square, you know."
"Oh, I see," I replied, with some confusion, not at his osteology,
but at the gaze of a pair of living and lively eyes fastened upon
me. A gentleman, waiting for his bill, had risen in the next low
box, and stood calmly (as if he had done all his duty to himself)
gazing over the wooden back at me, who thus sat facing him. And
Major Hockin, following my glance, stood up and turned round to see
to it.
"What! Cousin Montague! Bless my heart, who could have dreamed of
lighting on you here? Come in, my dear follow; there is plenty of
room. Let me introduce you to my new ward, Miss Erema Castlewood.
Miss Castlewood, this is Sir Montague Hockin, the son of my
lamented first cousin Sir Rufus, of whom you have heard so much.
Well, to be sure! I have not seen you for an age. My dear fellow,
now how are you?"
"Miss Castlewood, please not to move; I sit any where. Major, I am
most delighted to see you. Over and over again I have been at the
point of starting for Bruntsea Island--it is an island now, isn't
it? My father would never believe that it was till I proved it
from the number of rabbits that came up. However, not a desolate
island now, if it contains you and all your energies, and Miss
Castlewood, as well as Mrs. Hockin."
"It is not an island, and it never shall be," the Major cried,
knocking a blue plate over, and spilling the salt inauspiciously.
"It never was an island, and it never shall be. My intention is to
reclaim it altogether. Oh, here come the squares. Well done! well
done! I quite forget the proper thing to have to drink. Are the
cockles in the pan, Mr. Waiter? Quite right, then; ten minutes is
the proper time; but they know that better than I do. I am very
sorry, Montague, that you have dined."
"Surely you would not call this a dinner; I take my true luncheon
afterward. But lately my appetite has been so bad that it must be
fed up at short intervals. You can understand that, perhaps, Miss
Castlewood. It makes the confectioners' fortunes, you know. The
ladies once came only twice to feed, but now they come three times,
I am assured by a young man who knows all about it. And cherry
brandy is the mildest form of tipple."
"Shocking scandal! abominable talk!" cried the Major, who took
every thing at its word. "I have heard all that sort of stuff ever
since I was as high as this table. Waiter, show me this
gentleman's bill. Oh well, oh well! you have not done so very
badly. Two squares and a round, with a jug of Steinberg, and a
pint of British stout with your Stilton. If this is your ante-
lunch, what will you do when you come to your real luncheon? But I
must not talk now; you may have it as you please."
"The truth of it is, Miss Castlewood," said the young man, while I
looked with some curiosity at my frizzling bone, with the cover
just whisked off, and drops of its juice (like the rays of a
lustre) shaking with soft inner wealth--"the truth of it is just
this, and no more: we fix our minds and our thoughts, and all the
rest of our higher intelligence, a great deal too much upon our
mere food."
"No doubt we do," I was obliged to answer. "It is very sad to
think of, as soon as one has dined. But does that reflection
occur, as it should, at the proper time to be useful--I mean when
we are hungry?"
"I fear not; I fear that it is rather praeterite than practical."
"No big words now, my dear fellow," cried the Major. "You have had
your turn; let us have ours. But, Erema, you are eating nothing.
Take a knife and fork, Montague, and help her. The beauty of these
things consists entirely, absolutely, essentially, I may say, in
their having the smoke rushing out of them. A gush of steam like
this should follow every turn of the knife. But there! I am
spoiling every bit by talking so."
"Is that any fault of mine?" asked Sir Montague, in a tone which
made me look at him. The voice was not harsh, nor rough, nor
unpleasant, yet it gave me the idea that it could be all three, and
worse than all three, upon occasion. So I looked at him, which I
had refrained from doing, to see whether his face confirmed that
idea. To the best of my perception, it did not. Sir Montague
Hockin was rather good-looking, so far as form and color go, having
regular features, and clear blue eyes, very beautiful teeth, and a
golden beard. His appearance was grave, but not morose, as if he
were always examining things and people without condemning them.
It was evident that he expected to take the upper hand in general,
to play the first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to "be helped to all
the stuffing of the pumpkin," as dear Uncle Sam was fond of saying.
Of moderate stature, almost of middle age, and dressed nicely,
without any gewgaws, which look so common upon a gentleman's front,
he was likely to please more people than he displeased at first on-
sight.
The Major was now in the flush of goodwill, having found his dinner
genial; and being a good man, he yielded to a little sympathetic
anger with those who had done less justice to themselves. And in
this state of mind he begged us to take note of one thing--that his
ward should be christened in Bruntsea Church, as sure as all the
bells were his, according to their inscriptions, no later than next
Thursday week, that being the day for a good sirloin; and if Sir
Montague failed to come to see how they could manage things under
proper administration, he might be sure of one thing, if no more--
that Major Hockin would never speak to him again.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A CHECK
So many things now began to open upon me, to do and to think of,
that I scarcely knew which to begin with. I used to be told how
much wiser it was not to interfere with any thing--to let by-gones
be by-gones, and consider my own self only. But this advice never
came home to my case, and it always seemed an unworthy thing even
to be listening to it. And now I saw reason to be glad for
thanking people who advised me, and letting them go on to advise
themselves. For if I had listened to Major Hockin, or even Uncle
Sam for that part, where must I have been now? Why, simply knowing
no more than as a child I knew, and feeling miserable about it.
Whereas I had now at least something to go upon, and enough for a
long time to occupy my mind. The difficulty was to know what to do
first, and what to resolve to leave undone, or at least to put off
for the present. One of my special desires had been to discover
that man, that Mr. Goad, who had frightened me so about two years
back, and was said to be lost in the snow-drifts. But nobody like
him had ever been found, to the sorrow of the neighborhood; and
Sylvester himself had been disappointed, not even to know what to
do with his clothes.
His card, however, before he went off, had been left to the care of
Uncle Sam for security of the 15,000 dollars; and on it was
printed, with a glazing and much flourish, "Vypan, Goad, and
Terryer: Private Inquiry Office, Little England Polygon, W.C."
Uncle Sam, with a grunt and a rise of his foot, had sent this low
card flying to the fire, after I had kissed him so for all his
truth and loveliness; but I had caught it and made him give it to
me, as was only natural. And having this now, I had been quite
prepared to go and present it at its mean address, and ask what
they wanted me for in America, and what they would like to do with
me now, taking care to have either the Major close at hand, or else
a policeman well recommended.
But now I determined to wait a little while (if Betsy Bowen's
opinion should be at all the same as mine was), and to ask Mr.
Shovelin what he thought about it, before doing any thing that
might arouse a set of ideas quite opposite to mine, and so cause
trouble afterward. And being unable to think any better for the
time than to wait and be talked to, I got Major Hockin to take me
back again to the right number in European Square.
Here I found Mrs. Strouss (born Betsy Bowen) ready and eager to
hear a great deal more than I myself had heard that day. On the
other hand, I had many questions, arising from things said to me,
to which I required clear answers; and it never would do for her to
suppose that because she had known me come into this world, she
must govern the whole of my course therein. But it cost many words
and a great deal of demeanor to teach her that, good and faithful
as she was, I could not be always under her. Yet I promised to
take her advice whenever it agreed with my own opinions.
This pleased her, and she promised to offer it always, knowing how
well it would be received, and she told all her lodgers that they
might ring and ring, for she did not mean to answer any of their
bells; but if they wanted any thing, they must go and fetch it.
Being Germans, who are the most docile of men in England, whatever
they may be at home, they made no complaint, but retired to their
pipes in a pleasant condition of surprise at London habits.
Mrs. Strouss, being from her earliest years of a thrifty and
reputable turn of mind, had managed, in a large yet honest way, to
put by many things which must prove useful in the long-run, if kept
long enough. And I did hear--most careful as I am to pay no
attention to petty rumors--that the first thing that moved the
heart of Herr Strouss, and called forth his finest feelings, was a
winding-up chair, which came out to make legs, with a pocket for
tobacco, and a flat place for a glass.
This was certainly a paltry thought; and to think of such low
things grieved me. And now, when I looked at Mr. Strouss himself,
having heard of none of these things yet, I felt that my nurse
might not have done her best, yet might have done worse, when she
married him. For he seemed to have taken a liking toward me, and
an interest in my affairs, which redounded to his credit, if he
would not be too inquisitive. And now I gladly allowed him to be
present, and to rest in the chair which had captivated him,
although last night I could scarcely have borne to have heard in
his presence what I had to hear. To-night there was nothing
distressful to be said, compared, at least, with last night's tale;
whereas there were several questions to be put, in some of which
(while scouting altogether Uncle Sam's low estimate) two females
might, with advantage perhaps, obtain an opinion from the stronger
sex.
And now, as soon as I had told my two friends as well as I could
what had happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I
had been), those questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to
the following purport--setting aside the main puzzle of all.
Why did my father say, on that dreadful morning, that if his father
was dead, he himself had killed or murdered him? Betsy believed,
when she came to think, that he had even used the worse word of
these two.
How could the fatal shot have been discharged from his pistol--as
clearly it had been--a pistol, moreover, which, by his own account,
as Betsy now remembered, he had left in his quarters near
Chichester?
What was that horrible disease which had carried off all my poor
little brothers and sisters, and frightened kind neighbors and
servants away? Betsy said it was called "Differeria," as differing
so much from all other complaints. I had never yet heard of this,
but discovered, without asking further than of Mr. Strouss, that
she meant that urgent mandate for a levy of small angels which is
called on earth "diphtheria."
Who had directed those private inquirers, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer,
to send to the far West a member of their firm to get legal proof
of my dear father's death, and to bring me back, if possible? The
present Lord Castlewood never would have done so, according to what
Mr. Shovelin said; it was far more likely that (but for weak
health) he would have come forth himself to seek me, upon any
probable tidings. At once a religious and chivalrous man, he would
never employ mean agency. And while thinking of that, another
thought occurred--What had induced that low man Goad to give Uncle
Sam a date wrong altogether for the crime which began all our
misery? He had put it at ten, now twelve, years back, and dated it
in November, whereas it had happened in September month, six years
and two months before the date he gave. This question was out of
all answer to me, and also to Mrs. Strouss herself; but Herr
Strouss, being of a legal turn, believed that the law was to blame
for it. He thought that proceedings might be bound to begin, under
the Extradition Act, within ten years of the date of the crime; or
there might be some other stipulation compelling Mr. Goad to add
one to all his falsehoods; and not knowing any thing about it, both
of us thought it very likely.
Again, what could have been that last pledge which passed between
my father and mother, when they said "good-by" to one another, and
perhaps knew that it was forever, so far as this bodily world is
concerned? Was it any thing about a poor little sleeping and
whimpering creature like myself, who could not yet make any
difference to any living being except the mother? Or was it
concerning far more important things, justice, clear honor, good-
will, and duty, such as in the crush of time come upward with high
natures? And if so, was it not a promise from my mother, knowing
every thing, to say nothing, even at the quivering moment of lying
beneath the point of death?
This was a new idea for Betsy, who had concluded from the very
first that the pledge must be on my father's part--to wit, that he
had vowed not to surrender, or hurt himself in any way, for the
sake of his dear wife. And to my suggestion she could only say
that she never had seen it in that light; but the landings were so
narrow and the walls so soft that, with all her duty staring in her
face, neither she, nor the best servant ever in an apron, could be
held responsible to repeat their very words. And her husband said
that this was good--very good--so good as ever could be; and what
was to show now from the mouth of any one, after fifteen, sixteen,
eighteen, the years?
After this I had no other word to say, being still too young to
contradict people duly married and of one accord. No other word, I
mean, upon that point; though still I had to ask, upon matters more
immediate, what was the next thing for me, perhaps, to do. And
first of all it was settled among us that for me to present myself
at the head-quarters of Vypau, Goad, and Terryer would be a very
clumsy and stupid proceeding, and perhaps even dangerous. Of
course they would not reveal to me the author of those kind
inquiries about myself, which perhaps had cost the firm a very
valuable life, the life of Mr. Goad himself. And while I should
learn less than nothing from them, they would most easily extract
from me, or at any rate find out afterward, where I was living, and
what I was doing, and how I could most quietly be met and baffled,
and perhaps even made away with, so as to save all further trouble.
Neither was that the only point upon which I resolved to do
nothing. Herr Strouss was a very simple-minded man, yet full of
true sagacity, and he warmly advised, in his very worst English,
that none but my few trusty friends should be told of my visit to
this country.
"Why for make to know your enemies?" he asked, with one finger on
his forehead, which was his mode of indicating caution. "Enemies
find out vere soon, too soon, soon enough. Begin to plot--no, no,
young lady begin first. Vilhelmina, your man say the right. Is it
good, or is it bad?"
It appeared to us both to be good, so far as might be judged for
the present; and therefore I made up my mind to abstain from
calling even on my father's agent, unless Mr. Shovelin should think
it needful. In that and other matters I would act by his advice;
and so with better spirits than I long had owned, at finding so
much kindness, and with good hopes of the morrow, I went to the
snug little bedroom which my good nurse had provided.
Alas! What was my little grief on the morrow, compared to the deep
and abiding loss of many by a good man's death? When I went to the
door at which I had been told to knock, it was long before I got an
answer. And even when somebody came at last, so far from being my
guardian, it was only a poor old clerk, who said, "Hush, miss!" and
then prayed that the will of the Lord might be done. "Couldn't you
see the half-shutters up?" he continued, rather roughly. "'Tis a
bad job for many a poor man to-day. And it seems no more than
yesterday I was carrying him about!"
"Do you mean Mr. Shovelin?" I asked. "Is he poorly? Has any thing
happened? I can wait, or come again."
"The Lord has taken him to the mansions of the just, from his
private address at Sydenham Hill. A burning and a shining light!
May we like him be found watching in that day, with our lamps
trimmed and our loins girded!"
For the moment I was too surprised to speak, and the kind old man
led me into the passage, seeing how pale and faint I was. He
belonged, like his master, and a great part of their business, to a
simple religious persuasion, or faith, which now is very seldom
heard of.
"It was just in this way," he said, as soon as tears had enabled me
to speak--for even at the first sight I had felt affection toward
my new guardian. "Our master is a very punctual man, for five-and-
thirty years never late--never late once till this morning. Excuse
me, miss, I ought to be ashamed. The Lord knoweth what is best for
us. Well, you threw him out a good bit yesterday, and there was
other troubles. And he had to work late last night, I hear; for
through his work he would go, be it anyhow--diligent in business,
husbanding the time--and when he came down to breakfast this
morning, he prayed with his household as usual, but they noticed
his voice rather weak and queer; and the mistress looked at him
when he got up from his knees; but he drank his cup of tea and he
ate his bit of toast, which was all he ever took for breakfast.
But presently when his cob came up to the door--for he always rode
in to business, miss, no matter what the weather was--he went to
kiss his wife and his daughters all round, according to their ages;
and he got through them all, when away he fell down, with the
riding-whip in one hand, and expired on a piece of Indian matting."
"How terrible!" I exclaimed, with a sob. And the poor old man, in
spite of all his piety, was sobbing.
"No, miss; not a bit of terror about it, to a man prepared as he
was. He had had some warning just a year ago; and the doctors all
told him he must leave off work. He could no more do without his
proper work than he could without air or victuals. What this old
established concern will do without him, our Divine Master only
knows. And a pinch coming on in Threadneedle Street, I hear--but I
scarcely know what I am saying, miss; I was thinking of the camel
and the needle."
"I will not repeat what you have not meant to tell," I answered,
seeing his confusion, and the clumsy turn he had made of it. "Only
tell me what dear Mr. Shovelin died of."
"Heart-disease, miss. You might know in a moment. Nothing kills
like that. His poor father died of it, thirty years agone. And
the better people are, the more they get it."
CHAPTER XXIX
AT THE PUMP
This blow was so sharp and heavy that I lost for the moment all
power to go on. The sense of ill fortune fell upon me, as it falls
upon stronger people, when a sudden gleam of hope, breaking through
long troubles, mysteriously fades away.
Even the pleasure of indulging in the gloom of evil luck was a
thing to be ashamed of now, when I thought of that good man's
family thus, without a moment's warning, robbed of love and
hope and happiness. But Mrs. Strouss, who often brooded on
predestination, imbittered all my thoughts by saying, or rather
conveying without words, that my poor fathers taint of some Divine
ill-will had re-appeared, and even killed his banker.
Betsy held most Low-Church views, by nature being a Dissenter. She
called herself a Baptist, and in some strange way had stopped me
thus from ever having been baptized. I do not understand these
things, and the battles fought about them; but knowing that my
father was a member of the English Church, I resolved to be the
same, and told Betsy that she ought not to set up against her
master's doctrine. Then she herself became ashamed of trying to
convert me, not only because of my ignorance (which made argument
like shooting into the sea), but chiefly because she could mention
no one of title with such theology.
This settled the question at once; and remembering (to my shame)
what opinions I had held even of Suan Isco, while being in the very
same predicament myself, reflecting also what Uncle Sam and Firm
would have thought of me, had they known it, I anticipated the
Major and his dinner party by going to a quiet ancient clergyman,
who examined me, and being satisfied with little, took me to an old
City church of deep and damp retirement. And here, with a great
din of traffic outside, and a mildewy depth of repose within, I was
presented by certain sponsors (the clerk and his wife and his
wife's sister), and heard good words, and hope to keep the
impression, both outward and inward, gently made upon me.
I need not say that I kept, and now received with authority, my old
name; though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in
two syllables only. But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and
looked at me with curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old
school, put never a question about it.
Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs.
Hockin, to save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I
scarcely knew how to be moving next, though move I must before very
long. For it cost me a great deal of money to stay in European
Square like this, albeit Herr Strouss was of all men the most
generous, by his own avowal, and his wife (by the same test) noble-
hearted among women. Yet each of them spoke of the other's
pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the other was out
of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all to say about
cash--by compulsion of the other--also both, when met together,
were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a thought of
payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but run
away between them.
This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable
to keep my secret about the great nugget. The Major had told me
not to speak of this, according to wise experience; and I had not
the smallest intention of doing an atom of mischief in that way;
but somehow or other it came out one night when I was being pitied
for my desolation. And all the charges against me began to be
doubled from that moment.
If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite
content that my money should go as fast as it came in to me. But
there was another thing here which cost me as much as my board and
lodgings and all the rest of my expenses. And that was the iron
pump in European Square. For this pump stood in the very centre of
a huddled district of famine, filth, and fever. When once I had
seen from the leads of our house the quag of reeking life around,
the stubs and snags of chimney-pots, the gashes among them entitled
streets, and the broken blains called houses, I was quite ashamed
of paying any thing to become a Christian.
Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be,
and that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas,
fiercely resented all interference, and were good to one another in
their own rough way. It was more than three years since there had
been a single murder among them, and even then the man who was
killed confessed that he deserved it. She told me, also, that in
some mining district of Wales, well known to her, things were a
great deal worse than here, although the people were not half so
poor. And finally, looking at a ruby ring which I had begged her
to wear always, for the sake of her truth to me, she begged me to
be wiser than to fret about things that I could not change. "All
these people, whose hovels I saw, had the means of grace before
them, and if they would not stretch forth their hands, it was only
because they were vessels of wrath. Her pity was rather for our
poor black brethren who had never enjoyed no opportunities, and
therefore must be castaways."
Being a stranger, and so young, and accustomed to receive my
doctrine (since first I went to America), I dropped all intention
of attempting any good in places where I might be murdered. But I
could not help looking at the pump which was in front, and the poor
things who came there for water, and, most of all, the children.
With these it was almost the joy of the day, and perhaps the only
joy, to come into this little open space and stand, and put their
backs up stiffly, and stare about, ready for some good luck to turn
up--such as a horse to hold, or a man coming out of the docks with
a half-penny to spare--and then, in failure of such golden hope, to
dash about, in and out, after one another, splashing, and kicking
over their own cans, kettles, jars, or buckets, and stretching
their dirty little naked legs, and showing very often fine white
chests, and bright teeth wet with laughter. And then, when this
chivy was done, and their quick little hearts beat aloud with
glory, it was pretty to see them all rally round the pump, as
crafty as their betters, and watching with sly humor each other's
readiness to begin again.
Then suddenly a sense of neglected duty would seize some little
body with a hand to its side, nine times out of ten a girl,
whose mother, perhaps, lay sick at home, and a stern idea of
responsibility began to make the buckets clank. Then might you
see, if you cared to do so, orderly management have its turn--a
demand for pins and a tucking up of skirts (which scarcely seemed
worthy of the great young fuss), large children scolding little
ones not a bit more muddy than themselves, the while the very least
child of all, too young as yet for chivying, and only come for
company, would smooth her comparatively clean frock down, and look
up at her sisters with condemnatory eyes.
Trivial as they were, these things amused me much, and made a
little checker of reflected light upon the cloud of selfish gloom,
especially when the real work began, and the children, vying with
one another, set to at the iron handle. This was too large for
their little hands to grasp, and by means of some grievance inside,
or perhaps through a cruel trick of the plumber, up went the long
handle every time small fingers were too confiding, and there it
stood up like the tail of a rampant cow, or a branch inaccessible,
until an old shawl or the cord of a peg-top could be cast up on
high to reduce it. But some engineering boy, "highly gifted," like
Uncle Sam's self, "with machinery," had discovered an ingenious
cure for this. With the help of the girls he used to fasten a fat
little thing, about twelve months old, in the bend at the middle of
the handle, and there (like a ham on the steelyard) hung this baby
and enjoyed seesaw, and laughed at its own utility.
I never saw this, and the splashing and dribbling and play and
bright revelry of water, without forgetting all sad counsel and
discretion, and rushing out as if the dingy pump were my own
delicious Blue River. People used to look at me from the windows
with pity and astonishment, supposing me to be crazed or frantic,
especially the Germans. For to run out like this, without a pocket
full of money, would have been insanity; and to run out with it, to
their minds, was even clearer proof of that condition. For the
money went as quickly as the water of the pump; on this side and on
that it flew, each child in succession making deeper drain upon it,
in virtue of still deeper woes. They were dreadful little story-
tellers, I am very much afraid; and the long faces pulled, as soon
as I came out, in contrast with all the recent glee and frolic,
suggested to even the youngest charity suspicions of some
inconsistency. However, they were so ingenious and clever that
they worked my pockets like the pump itself, only with this unhappy
difference, that the former had no inexhaustible spring of silver,
or even of copper.
And thus, by a reason (as cogent as any of more exalted nature),
was I driven back to my head-quarters, there to abide till a fresh
supply should come. For Uncle Sam, generous and noble as he was,
did not mean to let me melt all away at once my share of the great
Blue River nugget, any more than to make ducks and drakes of his
own. Indeed, that rock of gold was still untouched, and healthily
reposing in a banker's cellar in the good town of Sacramento.
People were allowed to go in and see it upon payment of a dollar,
and they came out so thirsty from feasting upon it that a bar was
set up, and a pile of money made--all the gentlemen, and ladies
even worse than they, taking a reckless turn about small money
after seeing that. But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of the
profit of all this excitable work. It was wholly against his wish
that any thing so artificial should be done at all, and his sense
of religion condemned it. He said, in his very first letter to me,
that even a heathen must acknowledge this champion nugget as the
grandest work of the Lord yet discovered in America--a country more
full of all works of the Lord than the rest of the world put
together. And to keep it in a cellar, without any air or sun,
grated harshly upon his ideas of right.
However, he did not expect every body to think exactly as he did,
and if they could turn a few dollars upon it, they were welcome, as
having large families. And the balance might go to his credit
against the interest on any cash advanced to him. Not that he
meant to be very fast with this, never having run into debt in all
his life.
This, put shortly, was the reason why I could not run to the pump
any longer. I had come into England with money enough to last me
(according to the Sawyer's calculations) for a year and a half of
every needful work; whereas, in less than half that time, I was
arriving at my last penny. This reminded me of my dear father, who
was nearly always in trouble about money (although so strictly
upright); and at first I was proud to be like him about this, till
I came to find the disadvantages.
It must not even for a moment be imagined that this made any
difference in the behavior of any one toward me. Mrs. Strouss,
Herr Strouss, the lady on the stairs, and a very clever woman who
had got no rooms, but was kindly accommodated every where, as well
as the baron on the first floor front, and the gentleman from a
hotel at Hanover, who looked out the other way, and even the
children at the pump--not one made any difference toward me (as an
enemy might, perhaps, suppose) because my last half crown was gone.
It was admitted upon every side that I ought to be forgiven for my
random cast of money, because I knew no better, and was sure to
have more in a very little time. And the children of the pump came
to see me go away, through streets of a mile and a half, I should
think; and they carried my things, looking after one another, so
that none could run away. And being forbidden at the platform
gate, for want of respectability, they set up a cheer, and I waved
my hat, and promised, amidst great applause, to come back with it
full of sixpences.
CHAPTER XXX
COCKS AND COXCOMBS
Major Hockin brought the only fly as yet to be found in Bruntsea,
to meet me at Newport, where the railway ended at present, for want
of further encouragement.
"Very soon you go," he cried out to the bulkheads, or buffers, or
whatever are the things that close the career of a land-engine.
"Station-master, you are very wise in putting in your very best
cabbage plants there. You understand your own company. Well done!
If I were to offer you a shilling apiece for those young early
Yorks, what would you say, now?"
"Weel, a think I should say nah, Sir," the Scotch station-master
made answer, with a grin, while he pulled off his cap of office and
put on a dissolute Glengary. "They are a veery fine young kail,
that always pays for planting."
"The villain!" said the Major, as I jumped into the fly. "However,
I suppose he does quite right. Set a thief to watch a thief. The
company are big rogues, and he tries to be a bigger. We shall cut
through his garden in about three months, just when his cabbages
are getting firm, and their value will exceed that of pine-apples.
The surveyor will come down and certify, and the 'damage to crops'
will be at least five pounds, when they have no right to sow even
mustard and cress, and a saucepan would hold all the victuals on
the land."
From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculative
schemes as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly
turn aside from the unfenced road and take the turf. "Coachman,"
he cried, "just drive along the railway; you won't have the chance
much longer."
There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver
seemed to know what was meant, and took us over the springy turf
where once had run the river. And the salt breath of the sea came
over the pebble ridge, full of appetite and briskness, after so
much London.
"It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of," Major Hockin
began to say to me. "Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin! A man of large
capital--the very thing we want. It might have been the making of
this place. I have very little doubt that I must have brought him
to see our great natural advantages--the beauty of the situation,
the salubrity of the air, the absence of all clay, or marsh, or
noxious deposit, the bright crisp turf, and the noble underlay of
chalk, which (if you perceive my meaning) can not retain any damp,
but transmits it into sweet natural wells. Why, driver, where the
devil are you driving us?"
"No fear, your honor. I know every trick of it. It won't come
over the wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the
world to his sand-cracks. Whoa-ho, my boy, then! And the young
lady's feet might go up upon the cushion, if her boots is thin,
Sir; and Mr. Rasper will excuse of it."
"What the"--something hot--"do you mean, Sir?" the Major roared
over the water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on. "Pull
out this instant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three
months' hard labor. May I be d----d now--my dear, I beg your
pardon for speaking with such sincerity--I simply mean, may I go
straightway to the devil, if I don't put this fellow on the tread-
mill. Oh, you can pull out now, then, can you?"
"If your honor pleases, I never did pull in," the poor driver
answered, being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the
manor. "My orders was, miss, to drive along the line coming on now
just to Bruntsea, and keep in the middle of that same I did, and
this here little wet is a haxident--a haxident of the full moon, I
do assure you, and the wind coming over the sea, as you might say.
These pebbles is too round, miss, to stick to one another; you
couldn't expect it of them; and sometimes the water here and there
comes a-leaking like through the bottom. I have seed it so, ever
since I can remember."
"I don't believe a word of it," the Major said, as we waited a
little for the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright
sea flowers. "Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West
Bruntseyans, and you have driven us into a vile bog to scare me.
They have bribed you. I see the whole of it. Tell me the truth,
and you shall have five shillings."
The driver looked over the marshes as if he had never received such
an offer before. Five shillings for a falsehood would have seemed
the proper thing, and have called for a balance of considerations,
and made a demand upon his energies. But to earn five shillings by
the truth had never fallen to his luck before; and he turned to me,
because I smiled, and he said, "Will you taste the water, miss?"
"Bless me!" cried the Major, "now I never thought of that. Common
people have such ways about things they are used to! I might have
stood here for a month, and never have thought of that way to
settle it. Ridiculously simple. Give me a taste, Erema. Ah, that
is the real beauty of our coast, my dear! The strongest proportion
of the saline element--I should know the taste of it any where. No
sea-weed, no fishy particles, no sludge, no beards of oysters. The
pure, uncontaminated, perfect brine, that sets every male and
female on his legs, varicose, orthopedic--I forget their
scientifics, but I know the smack of it."
"Certainly," I said, "it is beautifully salt. It will give you an
appetite for dinner, Major Hockin. I could drink a pint of it,
after all that smoke. But don't you think it is a serious thing
for the sea itself to come pouring through the bottom of this
pebble bank in this way?"
"Not at all. No, I rather like it. It opens up many strictly
practical ideas. It adds very much to the value of the land. For
instance, a 'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it--and set up
an infirmary for foot and mouth disease. And better still, the
baths, the baths, my dear. No expense for piping, or pumping, or
any thing. Only place your marble at the proper level, and twice a
day you have the grand salubrious sparkling influx of ocean's self,
self-filtered, and by its own operation permeated with a fine
siliceous element. What foreign mud could compete with such a
bath?"
"But supposing there should come too much of it," I said, "and wash
both the baths and the bathers away?"
"Such an idea is ridiculous. It can be adjusted to a nicety. I am
very glad I happened to observe this thing, this--this noble
phenomenon. I shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I
am half an hour older. My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite
forgot to tell you; but never mind that for the present. Driver,
here is half a crown for you. Your master will put down the fly to
my account. He owes me a heriot. I shall claim his best beast,
the moment he gets one without a broken wind."
As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wonted
alacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had
done in London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw)
that somebody else might come down for me. And this was Sir
Montague Hockin, as I feared was only too likely from what had been
said. If I had even suspected that this gentleman was at
Bruntlands, I would have done my utmost to stay where I was, in
spite of all absence of money. Betsy would gladly have allowed me
to remain, without paying even a farthing, until it should become
convenient. Pride had forbidden me to speak of this; but I would
have got over that pride much rather than meet this Sir Montague
Hockin thus. Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether; and
having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps,
foolish importance to that.
However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one
through instinct; and I knew already that in England young women
are not quite such masters of their own behavior as in the far West
they are allowed to be. And so I did my best that, even in my
eyes, he should not see how vexed I was at meeting him. And soon
it appeared that this behavior, however painful to me, was no less
wise than good, because both with my host and hostess this new
visitor was already at the summit of all good graces. He had
conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes and upshots,
and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the distance;
and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had opened a
hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of an
extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with
every feather sticking inside out. When I saw them, I tried for my
life not to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded,
until the cock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb
and very sad inversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife
(who stood beneath him, even more turned inside out), capered with
his twiggy legs, and gave a long, sad crow. Mrs. Hockin looked at
him with intense delight.
"Erema, is it possible that you laugh? I thought that you never
laughed, Erema. At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might
choose a fitter opportunity, I think. You have spoiled his
demonstration altogether--see, he does not understand such
unkindness--and it is the very first he has uttered since he came.
Oh, poor Fluffsky!"
"I am very, very sorry. But how was I to help it? I would not, on
any account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive.
Fluffsky, do please to begin again."
"These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you," said Sir
Montague, coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers
for one more crow. "Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have
a fowl that even Lady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have
it in a week, or a fortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can
manage it. They are not to be had except through certain channels,
and the fellows who write the poultry books have never even heard
of them."
"Oh, how delighted I shall be! Lady Clara despises all her
neighbors so. But do they lay eggs? Half the use of keeping
poultry, when you never kill them, is to get an egg for breakfast;
and Major Hockin looks round and says, 'Now is this our own?' and I
can not say that it is; and I am vexed with the books, and he
begins to laugh at me. People said it was for want of chalk, but
they walk upon nothing but chalk, as you can see."
"And their food, Mrs. Hockin. They are walking upon that. Starve
them for a week, and forty eggs at least will reward you for stern
discipline."
But all this little talk I only tell to show how good and soft Mrs.
Hockin was; and her husband, in spite of all his self-opinion, and
resolute talk about money and manorial dues, in his way, perhaps,
was even less to be trusted to get his cash out of any poor and
honest man.
On the very day after my return from London I received a letter
from "Colonel Gundry" (as we always called the Sawyer now, through
his kinship to the Major), and, as it can not easily be put into
less compass, I may as well give his very words:
"DEAR MISS REMA,--Your last favor to hand, with thanks. Every
thing is going on all right with us. The mill is built up, and
goes better than ever; more orders on hand than we can get through.
We have not cracked the big nugget yet. Expect the government to
take him at a trifle below value, for Washington Museum. Must have
your consent; but, for my part, would rather let him go there than
break him. Am ready to lose a few dollars upon him, particularly
as he might crack up all quartzy in the middle. They offer to take
him by weight at three dollars and a half per pound below standard.
Please say if agreeable.
"I fear, my dear, that there are bad times coming for all of us
here in this part. Not about money, but a long sight worse; bad
will, and contention, and rebellion, perhaps. What we hear
concerning it is not much here; but even here thoughts are very
much divided. Ephraim takes a different view from mine; which is
not a right thing for a grandson to do; and neighbor Sylvester goes
with him. The Lord send agreement and concord among us; but, if He
doeth so, He must change his mind first, for every man is borrowing
his neighbor's gun.
"If there is any thing that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his
duty, my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it. If
Firm was to run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of
slavery, I never should care more for naught upon this side of
Jordan; and the new mill might go to Jericho; though it does look
uncommon handsome now, I can assure you, and tears through its work
like a tiger.
"Noting symptoms in your last of the price of things in England,
and having carried over some to your account, inclosed please to
find a bill for five hundred dollars, though not likely to be
wanted yet. Save a care of your money, my dear; but pay your way
handsome, as a Castlewood should do. Jowler goes his rounds twice
a day looking for you; and somebody else never hangs his hat up
without casting one eye at the corner you know. Sylvester's girl
was over here last week, dashing about as usual. If Firm goes
South, he may have her, for aught I care, and never see saw-mill
again. But I hope that the Lord will spare my old days such
disgrace and tribulation.
"About you know what, my dear, be not overanxious. I have been
young, and now am old, as the holy Psalmist says; and the more I
see of the ways of men, the less I verily think of them. Their
good esteem, their cap in hand, their fair fame, as they call it,
goes by accident, and fortune, the whim of the moment, and the way
the clever ones have of tickling them. A great man laughs at the
flimsy of it, and a good one goes to his conscience. Your father
saw these things at their value. I have often grieved that you can
not see them so; but perhaps I have liked you none the worse, my
dear.
"Don't forget about going South. A word from you may stop him. It
is almost the only hope I have, and even that may be too late.
Suan Isco and Martin send messages. The flowers are on your
father's grave. I have got a large order for pine cradles in great
haste, but have time to be,
"Truly yours,
"SAMPSON GUNDRY."
That letter, while it relieved me in one way, from the want of
money, cost me more than ten times five hundred dollars' worth of
anxiety. The Sawyer had written to me twice ere this--kind, simple
letters, but of no importance, except for their goodness and
affection. But now it was clear that when he wrote this letter he
must have been sadly put out and upset. His advice to me was
beyond all value; but he seemed to have kept none at home for
himself. He was carried quite out of his large, staid ways when he
wrote those bitter words about poor Firm--the very apple of his
eye, as the holy Psalmist says. And, knowing the obstinacy of them
both, I dreaded clash between them.
CHAPTER XXXI
ADRIFT
Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to
simplicity, and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with
charity or furnished lodgings (what though kept by one's own
nurse), I cast about now for good reason to be off from all the
busy works at Bruntsea. So soon after such a tremendous blow, it
was impossible for me to push my own little troubles and concerns
upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longed to know what was
to become of my father's will, if any thing. But my desire to be
doing something, or, at least, to get away for a time from
Bruntsea, was largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strange
behavior toward me.
That young man, if still he could be called young--which, at my
age, scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten
years older than poor Firm--began more and more every day to come
after me, just when I wanted to be quite alone. There was nothing
more soothing to my thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet
from the former, I suppose) than for the whole of me to rest a
while in such a little scollop of the shingle as a new-moon tide,
in little crescents, leaves just below high-water mark. And now it
was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after the flooding of our fly
by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling how I longed to
understand these things--which seem to be denied to all who are of
the same sex as the moon herself--I sat in a very nice nick, where
no wind could make me look worse than nature willed. But of my own
looks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of
such a subject.
Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering
by what energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced,
and not even a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by
side and purely tally with each other. Right and left, for miles
and miles, millions multiplied into millions; yet I might hold any
one in my palm and be sure that it never had been there before.
And of the quiet wavelets even, taking their own time and manner,
in default of will of wind, all to come and call attention to their
doom by arching over, and endeavoring to make froth, were any two
in sound and size, much more in shape and shade, alike? Every one
had its own little business, of floating pop-weed or foam bubbles
or of blistered light, to do; and every one, having done it, died
and subsided into its successor.
"A trifle sentimental, are we?" cried a lively voice behind me, and
the waves of my soft reflections fell, and instead of them stood
Sir Montague Hockin, with a hideous parasol.
I never received him with worse grace, often as I had repulsed him;
but he was one of those people who think that women are all whims
and ways.
"I grieve to intrude upon large ideas," he said, as I rose and
looked at him, "but I act under positive orders now. A lady knows
what is best for a lady. Mrs. Hockin has been looking from the
window, and she thinks that you ought not to be sitting in the sun
like this. There has been a case of sun-stroke at Southbourne--a
young lady meditating under the cliff--and she begs you to accept
this palm leaf."
I thought of the many miles I had wandered under the fierce
Californian sun; but I would not speak to him of that. "Thank
you," I said; "it was very kind of her to think of it, and of you
to do it. But will it be safe for you to go back without it?"
"Oh, why should I do so?" he answered, with a tone of mock pathos
which provoked me always, though I never could believe it to be
meant in ridicule of me, for that would have been too low a thing;
and, besides, I never spoke so. "Could you bear to see me slain by
the shafts of the sun? Miss Castlewood, this parasol is amply
large for both of us."
I would not answer him in his own vein, because I never liked his
vein at all; though I was not so entirely possessed as to want
every body to be like myself.
"Thank you; I mean to stay here," I said; "you may either leave the
parasol or take it, whichever will be less troublesome. At any
rate, I shall not use it."
A gentleman, according to my ideas, would have bowed and gone upon
his way; but Sir Montague Hockin would have no rebuff. He seemed
to look upon me as a child, such as average English girls, fresh
from little schools, would be. Nothing more annoyed me, after all
my thoughts and dream of some power in myself, than this.
"Perhaps I might tell you a thing or two," he said, while I kept
gazing at some fishing-boats, and sat down again, as a sign for him
to go--"a little thing or two of which you have no idea, even in
your most lonely musings, which might have a very deep interest for
you. Do you think that I came to this hole to see the sea? Or
that fussy old muff of a Major's doings?"
"Perhaps you would like me to tell him your opinion of his
intellect and great plans," I answered. "And after all his
kindness to you!"
"You never will do that," he said; "because you are a lady, and
will not repeat what is said in confidence. I could help you
materially in your great object, if you would only make a friend of
me."
"And what would your own object be? The pure anxiety to do right?"
"Partly, and I might say mainly, that; also an ambition for your
good opinion, which seems so inaccessible. But you will think me
selfish if I even hint at any condition of any kind. Every body I
have ever met with likes me, except Miss Castlewood."
As he spoke he glanced down his fine amber-colored beard, shining
in the sun, and even in the sun showing no gray hair (for a reason
which Mrs. Hockin told me afterward), and he seemed to think it
hard that a man with such a beard should be valued lightly.
"I do not see why we should talk," I said, "about either likes or
dislikes. Only, if you have any thing to tell, I shall be very
much obliged to you."
This gentleman looked at me in a way which I have often observed
in England. A general idea there prevails that the free and
enlightened natives of the West are in front of those here in
intelligence, and to some extent, therefore, in dishonesty. But
there must be many cases where the two are not the same.
"No," I replied, while he was looking at his buttons, which had
every British animal upon them; "I mean nothing more than the
simple thing I say. If you ought to tell me any thing, tell it. I
am accustomed to straightforward people. But they disappoint one
by their never knowing any thing."
"But I know something," he answered, with a nod of grave,
mysterious import; "and perhaps I will tell you some day, when
admitted, if ever I have such an honor, to some little degree of
friendship."
"Oh, please not to think of yourself," I exclaimed, in a manner
which must have amused him. "In such a case, the last thing that
you should do is that. Think only of what is right and honorable,
and your duty toward a lady. Also your duty to the laws of your
country. I am not at all sure that you ought not to be arrested.
But perhaps it is nothing at all, after all; only something
invented to provoke me."
"In that case, I can only drop the subject," he answered, with that
stern gleam of the eyes which I had observed before, and detested.
"I was also to tell you that we dine to-day an hour before the
usual time, that my cousin may go out in the boat for whiting. The
sea will be as smooth as glass. Perhaps you will come with us."
With these words, he lifted his hat and went off, leaving me in a
most uncomfortable state, as he must have known if he had even
tried to think. For I could not get the smallest idea what he
meant; and, much as I tried to believe that he must be only
pretending, for reasons of his own, to have something important to
tell me, scarcely was it possible to be contented so. A thousand
absurd imaginations began to torment me as to what he meant. He
lived in London so much, for instance, that he had much quicker
chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he was a man
of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetrate
what I could not; then, again, he kept a large account with
Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and
I knew not that a banker's reserve is much deeper than his deposit;
moreover--which, to my mind, was almost stronger proof than any
thing--Sir Montague Hockin was of smuggling pedigree, and likely to
be skillful in illicit runs of knowledge.
However, in spite of all this uneasiness, not another word would I
say to him about it, waiting rather for him to begin again upon it.
But, though I waited and waited, as, perhaps, with any other person
I scarcely could have done, he would not condescend to give me even
another look about it.
Disliking that gentleman more and more for his supercilious conduct
and certainty of subduing me, I naturally turned again to my good
host and hostess. But here there was very little help or support
to be obtained at present. Major Hockin was laying the foundations
of "The Bruntsea Assembly-Rooms, Literary Institute, Mutual
Improvement Association, Lyceum, and Baths, from sixpence upward;"
while Mrs. Hockin had a hatch of "White Sultans," or, rather, a
prolonged sitting of eggs, fondly hoped to hatch at last, from
having cost so much, like a chicken-hearted Conference. Much as I
sorrowed at her disappointment--for the sitting cost twelve
guineas--I could not feel quite guiltless of a petty and ignoble
smile, when, after hoping against hope, upon the thirtieth day she
placed her beautifully sound eggs in a large bowl of warm water, in
which they floated as calmly as if their price was a penny a dozen.
The poor lady tried to believe that they were spinning with
vitality; but at last she allowed me to break one, and lo! it had
been half boiled by the advertiser. "This is very sad," cried Mrs.
Hockin; and the patient old hen, who was come in a basket of hay to
see the end of it, echoed with a cluck that sentiment.
These things being so, I was left once more to follow my own
guidance, which had seemed, in the main, to be my fortune ever
since my father died. For one day Mr. Shovelin had appeared, to my
great joy and comfort, as a guide and guardian; but, alas! for one
day only. And, except for his good advice and kind paternal
conduct to me, it seemed at present an unlucky thing that I had
ever discovered him. Not only through deep sense of loss and real
sorrow for him, but also because Major Hockin, however good and
great and generous, took it unreasonably into his head that I threw
him over, and threw myself (as with want of fine taste he expressed
it) into the arms of the banker. This hurt me very much, and I
felt that Major Hockin could never have spoken so hastily unless
his hair had been originally red; and so it might be detected, even
now, where it survived itself, though blanched where he brushed it
into that pretentious ridge. Sometimes I liked that man, when his
thoughts were large and liberal; but no sooner had he said a fine
brave thing than he seemed to have an after-thought not to go too
far with it; just as he had done about the poor robbed woman from
the steerage and the young man who pulled out his guinea. I paid
him for my board and lodging, upon a scale settled by Uncle Sam
himself, at California prices; therefore I am under no obligation
to conceal his foibles. But, take him altogether, he was good and
brave and just, though unable, from absence of inner light, to be
to me what Uncle Sam had been.
When I perceived that the Major condemned my simple behavior in
London, and (if I may speak it, as I said it to myself) "blew hot
and cold" in half a minute--hot when I thought of any good things
to be done, and cold as soon as he became the man to do them--also,
when I remembered what a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the
shape of Sir Montague, who went to and fro, but could never be
trusted to be far off, I resolved to do what I had long been
thinking of, and believed that my guardian, if he had lived another
day, would have recommended. I resolved to go and see Lord
Castlewood, my father's first cousin and friend in need.
When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they
both declared that it was the very thing they were at the point of
advising, which, however, they had forborne from doing because I
never took advice. At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I
could not help smiling seriously; but I could not accept their sage
opinion that, before I went to see my kinsman, I ought to write and
ask his leave to do so. For that would have made it quite a rude
thing to call, as I must still have done, if he should decline
beforehand to receive me. Moreover, it would look as if I sought
an invitation, while only wanting an interview. Therefore, being
now full of money again, I hired the flyman who had made us taste
the water, and taking train at Newport, and changing at two or
three places as ordered, crossed many little streams, and came to a
fair river, which proved to be the Thames itself, a few miles above
Reading.
In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, and
tribulation, my heart was throbbing with some rather small
feelings, as for the first time I drew near to the home of my
forefathers. I should have been sorry to find it ugly or mean, or
lying in a hole, or even modern or insignificant; and when none of
these charges could be brought against it, I was filled with highly
discreditable pain that Providence had not seen fit to issue me
into this world in the masculine form; in which case this fine
property would, according to the rules of mankind, have been mine.
However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and sat down on a
bank to dispel them with the free and fair view around me.
The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to
shape it, so as not to spoil the site. It stood near the brow of a
bosoming hill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from
the rigor and fury of the north and east; while in front the
sloping foreground widened its soft lap of green. In bays and
waves of rolling grass, promontoried, here and there, by jutting
copse or massive tree, and jotted now and then with cattle as calm
as boats at anchor, the range of sunny upland fell to the reedy
fringe and clustered silence of deep river meadows. Here the
Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness and courtesy, yet with will
of its own ways, being now a plenteous river, spreads low music,
and holds mirror to the woods and hills and fields, casting afar a
broad still gleam, and on the banks presenting tremulous infinitude
of flash.
Now these things touched me all the more because none of them
belonged to me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got
up with much better heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever
it might be. A girl brought up in the real English way would have
spent her last shilling to drive up to the door in the fly at the
station--a most sad machine--but I thought it no disgrace to go in
a more becoming manner.
One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went as
quietly into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's. If any body
had been rude to me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that
sort, my spirit might have been up at once, and found, as usually
happens then, good reason to go down afterward. But happily there
was nothing of the kind. An elderly man, without any gaudy badges,
opened the door very quietly, and begged my pardon, before I spoke,
for asking me to speak softly. It was one of his lordship's very
worst days, and when he was so, every sound seemed to reach him. I
took the hint, and did not speak at all, but followed him over deep
matting into a little room to which he showed me. And then I gave
him a little note, written before I left Bruntsea, and asked him
whether he thought that his master was well enough to attend to it.
He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father
well, having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked
whether my message was important. I answered that it was, but that
I would wait for another time rather than do any harm. But he said
that, however ill his master was, nothing provoked him more than to
find that any thing was neglected through it. And before I could
speak again he was gone with my letter to Lord Castlewood.
CHAPTER XXXII
AT HOME
Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had
befallen me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force
their remembrance upon me. Such dark figures always seem to make
the most of a nervous moment, when solid reason yields to
fluttering fear and small misgivings. There any body seems to lie,
as a stranded sailor lies, at the foot of perpendicular cliffs of
most inhuman humanity, with all the world frowning down over the
crest, and no one to throw a rope down. Often and often had I felt
this want of any one to help me, but the only way out of it seemed
to be to do my best to help myself.
Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and
knowing that my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's
strength. He might, at the utmost, give good advice, and help me
with kind feeling; but if he wanted to do more, surely he might
have tried ere now. But my thoughts about this were cut short by a
message that he would be glad to see me, and I followed the servant
to the library.
Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair,
uncushioned and uncomfortable. When he saw me near him he got up
and took my hand, and looked at me, and I was pleased to find his
face well-meaning, brave, and generous. But even to rise from his
chair was plainly no small effort to him, and he leaned upon a
staff or crutch as he offered me a small white hand.
"Miss Castlewood," he said, with a very weak yet clear and silvery
voice, "for many years I have longed in vain and sought in vain to
hear of you. I have not escaped all self-reproach through my sense
of want of energy; yet, such as I am, I have done my best, or I do
my best to think so."
"I am sure you have," I replied, without thinking, knowing his
kindness to my father, and feeling the shame of my own hot words to
Mr. Shovelin about him. "I owe you more gratitude than I can tell,
for your goodness to my dear father. I am not come now to trouble
you, but because it was my duty."
While I was speaking he managed to lead me, feebly as himself could
walk, to a deep chair for reading, or some such use, whereof I have
had few chances. And in every step and word and gesture I
recognized that foreign grace which true-born Britons are proud to
despise on both sides of the Atlantic. And, being in the light, I
watched him well, because I am not a foreigner.
In the clear summer light of the westering sun (which is better for
accurate uses than the radiance of the morning) I saw a firm, calm
face, which might in good health have been powerful--a face which
might be called the moonlight image of my father's. I could not
help turning away to cry, and suspicion fled forever.
"My dear young cousin," he said, as soon as I was fit to speak to,
"your father trusted me, and so must you. You may think that I
have forgotten you, or done very little to find you out. It was no
indifference, no forgetfulness: I have not been able to work
myself, and I have had very deep trouble of my own."
He leaned on his staff, and looked down at me, for I had sat down
when thus overcome, and I knew that the forehead and eyes were
those of a learned and intellectual man. How I knew this it is
impossible to say, for I never had met with such a character as
this, unless it were the Abbe of Flechon, when I was only fourteen
years old, and valued his great skill in spinning a top tenfold
more than all his deep learning. Lord Castlewood had long, silky
hair, falling in curls of silver gray upon either side of his
beautiful forehead, and the gaze of his soft dark eyes was sad,
gentle, yet penetrating. Weak health and almost constant pain had
chastened his delicate features to an expression almost feminine,
though firm thin lips and rigid lines showed masculine will and
fortitude. And when he spoke of his own trouble (which, perhaps,
he would not have done except for consolation's sake), I knew that
he meant something even more grievous than bodily anguish.
"It is hard," he said, "that you, so young and healthy and full of
high spirit as you are (unless your face belies you), should begin
the best years of your life, as common opinion puts such things, in
such a cloud of gloom and shame."
"There is no shame at all," I answered; "and if there is gloom, I
am used to that; and so was my father for years and years. What is
my trouble compared with his?"
"Your trouble is nothing when compared with his, so far as regards
the mere weight of it; but he was a strong man to carry his load;
you are a young and a sensitive woman. The burden may even be
worse for you. Now tell me all about yourself, and what has
brought you to me."
His voice was so quiet and soothing that I seemed to rest beneath
it. He had not spoken once of religion or the will of God, nor
plied me at all with those pious allusions, which even to the
reverent mind are like illusions when so urged. Lord Castlewood
had too deep a sense of the will of God to know what it is; and he
looked at me wistfully as at one who might have worse experience of
it.
Falling happily under his influence, as his clear, kind eyes met
mine, I told him every thing I could think of about my father and
myself, and all I wanted to do next, and how my heart and soul were
set upon getting to the bottom of every thing. And while I spoke
with spirit, or softness, or, I fear, sometimes with hate, I could
not help seeing that he was surprised, but not wholly displeased,
with my energy. And then, when all was exhausted, came the old
question I had heard so often, and found so hard to answer--
"And what do you propose to do next, Erema?"
"To go to the very place itself," I said, speaking strongly under
challenge, though quite unresolved about such a thing before; "to
live in the house where my father lived, and my mother and all of
the family died; and from day to day to search every corner and
fish up every bit of evidence, until I get hold of the true man at
last, of the villain who did it--who did it, and left my father and
all the rest of us to be condemned and die for it."
"Erema," replied my cousin, as he had told me now to call him, "you
are too impetuous for such work, and it is wholly unfit for you.
For such a task, persons of trained sagacity and keen observation
are needed. And after all these eighteen years, or nearly nineteen
now it must be, there can not be any thing to discover there."
"But if I like, may I go there, cousin, if only to satisfy my own
mind? I am miserable now at Bruntsea, and Sir Montague Hockin
wears me out."
"Sir Montague Hockin!" Lord Castlewood exclaimed; "why, you did not
tell me that he was there. Wherever he is, you should not be."
"I forgot to speak of him. He does not live there, but is
continually to and fro for bathing, or fishing, or rabbit-shooting,
or any other pretext. And he makes the place very unpleasant to
me, kind as the Major and Mrs. Hockin are, because I can never make
him out at all."
"Do not try to do so," my cousin answered, looking at me earnestly;
"be content to know nothing of him, my dear. If you can put up
with a very dull house, and a host who is even duller, come here
and live with me, as your father would have wished, and as I, your
nearest relative, now ask and beg of you."
This was wonderfully kind, and for a moment I felt tempted. Lord
Castlewood being an elderly man, and, as the head of our family, my
natural protector, there could be nothing wrong, and there might be
much that was good, in such an easy arrangement. But, on the other
hand, it seemed to me that after this my work would languish.
Living in comfort and prosperity under the roof of my forefathers,
beyond any doubt I should begin to fall into habits of luxury, to
take to the love of literature, which I knew to be latent within
me, to lose the clear, strong, practical sense of the duty for
which I, the last of seven, was spared, and in some measure,
perhaps, by wanderings and by hardships, fitted. And then I
thought of my host's weak health, continual pain (the signs of
which were hardly repressed even while he was speaking), and
probably also his secluded life. Was it fair to force him, by
virtue of his inborn kindness and courtesy, to come out of his
privileges and deal with me, who could not altogether be in any
place a mere nobody? And so I refused his offer.
"I am very much obliged to you indeed," I said, "but I think you
might be sorry for it. I will come and stop with you every now and
then, when your health is better, and you ask me. But to live here
altogether would not do; I should like it too well, and do nothing
else."
"Perhaps you are right," he replied, with the air of one who cares
little for any thing, which is to me the most melancholy thing, and
worse than any distress almost; "you are very young, my dear, and
years should be allowed to pass before you know what full-grown
sorrow is. You have had enough, for your age, of it. You had
better not live in this house; it is not a house for cheerfulness."
"Then if I must neither live here nor at Bruntsea," I asked, with
sudden remonstrance, feeling as if every body desired to be quit of
me or to worry me, "to what place in all the world am I to go,
unless it is back to America? I will go at once to Shoxford, and
take lodgings of my own."
"Perhaps you had better wait a little while," Lord Castlewood
answered, gently, "although I would much rather have you at
Shoxford than where you are at present. But please to remember, my
good Erema, that you can not go to Shoxford all alone. I have a
most faithful and trusty man--the one who opened the door to you.
He has been here before his remembrance. He disdains me still as
compared with your father. Will you have him to superintend you?
I scarcely see how you can do any good, but if you do go, you must
go openly, and as your father's daughter."
"I have no intention whatever of going in any other way, Lord
Castlewood; but perhaps," I continued, "it would be as well to make
as little stir as possible. Of an English village I know nothing
but the little I have seen at Bruntsea, but there they make a very
great fuss about any one who comes down with a man-servant."
"To be sure," replied my cousin, with a smile; "they would not be
true Britons otherwise. Perhaps you would do better without
Stixon; but of course you must not go alone. Could you by any
means persuade your old nurse Betsy to go with you?"
"How good of you to think of it!--how wise you are!" I really could
not help saying, as I gazed at his delicate and noble face. "I am
sure that if Betsy can come, she will; though of course she must be
compensated well for the waste all her lodgers will make of it.
They are very wicked, and eat most dreadfully if she even takes one
day's holiday. What do you think they even do? She has told me
with tears in her eyes of it. They are all allowed a pat of
butter, a penny roll, and two sardines for breakfast. No sooner do
they know that her back is turned--"
"Erema!" cried my cousin, with some surprise; and being so
recalled, I was ashamed. But I never could help taking interest in
very little things indeed, until my own common-sense, or somebody
else, came to tell me what a child I was. However, I do believe
that Uncle Sam liked me all the better for this fault.
"My dear, I did not mean to blame you," Lord Castlewood said, most
kindly; "it must be a great relief for you to look on at other
people. But tell me--or rather, since you have told me almost
every thing you know--let me, if only in one way I can help you,
help you at least in that way."
Knowing that he must mean money, I declined, from no false pride,
but a set resolve to work out my work, if possible, through my own
resources. But I promised to apply to him at once if scarcity
should again befall me, as had happened lately. And then I longed
to ask him why he seemed to have so low an opinion of Sir Montague
Hockin. That question, however, I feared to put, because it might
not be a proper one, and also because my cousin had spoken in a
very strange tone, as if of some private dislike or reserve on that
subject. Moreover, it was too evident that I had tried his
courtesy long enough. From time to time pale shades of bodily
pain, and then hot flushes, had flitted across his face, like
clouds on a windy summer evening. And more than once he had
glanced at the time-piece, not to hurry me, but as if he dreaded
its announcements. It was a beautiful clock, and struck with a
silvery sound every quarter of an hour. And now, as I rose to say
good-by, to catch my evening train, it struck a quarter to five,
and my cousin stood up, with his weight upon his staff, and looked
at me with an inexpressible depth of weary misery.
"I have only a few minutes left," he said, "during which I can say
any thing. My time is divided into two sad parts: the time when I
am capable of very little, and the time when I am capable of
nothing; and the latter part is twice the length of the other. For
sixteen hours of every day, far better had I be dead than living,
so far as our own little insolence may judge. But I speak of it
only to excuse bad manners, and perhaps I show worse by doing so.
I shall not be able to see you again until to-morrow morning. Do
not go; they will arrange all that. Send a note to Major Hockin by
Stixon's boy. Stixon and Mrs. Price will see to your comfort, if
those who are free from pain require any other comfort. Forgive
me; I did not mean to be rude. Sometimes I can not help giving
way."
Less enviable than the poorest slave, Lord Castlewood sank upon his
hard stiff chair, and straightened his long narrow hands upon his
knees, and set his thin lips in straight blue lines. Each hand was
as rigid as the ivory handle of an umbrella or walking-stick, and
his lips were like clamped wire. This was his regular way of
preparing for the onset of the night, so that no grimace, no cry,
no moan, or other token of fierce agony should be wrung from him.
"My lord will catch it stiff to-night," said Mr. Stixon, who came
as I rang, and then led me away to the drawing-room; "he always
have it ten times worse after any talking or any thing to upset him
like. And so, then, miss--excuse a humble servant--did I
understand from him that you was the Captain's own daughter?"
"Yes; but surely your master wants you--he is in such dreadful
pain. Do please to go to him, and do something."
"There is nothing to be done, miss," Stixon answered, with calm
resignation; "he is bound to stay so for sixteen hours, and then he
eases off again. But bless my heart, miss--excuse me in your
presence--his lordship is thoroughly used to it. It is my certain
knowledge that for seven years now he has never had seven minutes
free from pain--seven minutes all of a heap, I mean. Some do say,
miss, as the Lord doeth every thing according to His righteousness,
that the reason is not very far to seek."
I asked him what he meant, though I ought, perhaps, to have put a
stop to his loquacity; and he pretended not to hear, which made me
ask him all the more.
"A better man never lived than my lord," he answered, with a little
shock at my misprision; "but it has been said among censoorous
persons that nobody ever had no luck as came in suddenly to a
property and a high state of life on the top of the heads of a
family of seven."
"What a poor superstition!" I cried, though I was not quite sure of
its being a wicked one. "But what is your master's malady, Stixon?
Surely there might be something done to relieve his violent pain,
even if there is no real cure for it?"
"No, miss, nothing can be done. The doctors have exorced
themselves. They tried this, that, and the other, but nature only
flew worse against them. 'Tis a thing as was never heard of till
the Constitooshon was knocked on the head and to pieces by the
Reform Bill. And though they couldn't cure it, they done what they
could do, miss. They discovered a very good name for it--they
christened it the 'New-rager!'"
CHAPTER XXXIII
LORD CASTLEWOOD
In the morning, when I was called again to see my afflicted cousin--
Stixon junior having gladly gone to explain things for me at
Bruntsea--little as I knew of any bodily pain (except hunger, or
thirst, or weariness, and once in my life a headache), I stood
before Lord Castlewood with a deference and humility such as I had
never felt before toward any human being. Not only because he bore
perpetual pain in the two degrees of night and day--the day being
dark and the night jet-black--without a murmur or an evil word; not
only because through the whole of this he had kept his mind clear
and his love of knowledge bright; not even because he had managed,
like Job, to love God through the whole of it. All these were good
reasons for very great and very high respect of any man; and when
there was no claim whatever on his part to any such feeling, it
needs must come. But when I learned another thing, high respect at
once became what might be called deep reverence. And this came to
pass in a simple and, as any one must confess, quite inevitable
way.
It was not to be supposed that I could sit the whole of my first
evening in that house without a soul to speak to. So far as my
dignity and sense of right permitted, I wore out Mr. Stixon, so far
as he would go, not asking him any thing that the very worst-minded
person could call "inquisitive," but allowing him to talk, as he
seemed to like to do, while he waited upon me, and alternately
lamented my hapless history and my hopeless want of taste.
"Ah, your father, the Captain, now, he would have knowed what this
is! You've no right to his eyes, Miss Erma, without his tongue and
palate. No more of this, miss! and done for you a-purpose! Well,
cook will be put out, and no mistake! I better not let her see it
go down, anyhow." And the worthy man tearfully put some dainty by,
perhaps without any view to his own supper.
"Lord Castlewood spoke to me about a Mrs. Price--the housekeeper,
is she not?" I asked at last, being so accustomed to like what I
could get, that the number of dishes wearied me.
"Oh yes, miss," said Stixon, very shortly, as if that description
exhausted Mrs. Price.
"If she is not too busy, I should like to see her as soon as these
things are all taken away. I mean if she is not a stranger, and if
she would like to see me."
"No new-comers here," Mr. Stixon replied; "we all works our way up
regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do. New-fangled
ways is not accepted here. We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing
of the steps till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a
bean. The old lord was the man for discipline--your grandfather,
if you please, miss. He catched me when I were about that high--"
"Excuse me, Mr. Stixon; but would he have encouraged you to talk as
you so very kindly talk to me, instead of answering a question?"
I thought that poor Stixon would have been upset by this, and was
angry with myself for saying it; but instead of being hurt, he only
smiled and touched his forehead.
"Well, now, you did remind me uncommon of him then, miss. I could
have heard the old lord speak almost, though he were always harsh
and distant. And as I was going for to say, he catched me fifty
years agone next Lammas-tide; a pear-tree of an early sort it was;
you may see the very tree if you please to stand here, miss, though
the pears is quite altered now, and scarcely fit to eat. Well, I
was running off with my cap chock-full, miss--"
"Please to keep that story for another time," I said; "I shall be
most happy to hear it then. But I have a particular wish, if you
please, to see Mrs. Price before dark, unless there is any good
reason why I should not."
"Oh no, Miss Erma, no reason at all. Only please to bear in mind,
miss, that she is a coorous woman. She is that jealous, and I
might say forward--"
"Then she is capable of speaking for herself."
"You are right, miss, there, and no mistake. She can speak for
herself and for fifty others--words enough, I mean, for all of
them. But I would not have her know for all the world that I said
it."
"Then if you do not send her to me at once, the first thing I shall
do will be to tell her."
"Oh no, miss, none of your family would do that; that never has
been done anonymous."
I assured him that my threat was not in earnest, but of pure
impatience. And having no motive but downright jealousy for
keeping Mrs. Price from me, he made up his mind at last to let her
come. But he told me to be careful what I said; I must not expect
it to be at all like talking to himself, for instance.
The housekeeper came up at last, by dint of my persistence, and she
stopped in the doorway and made me a courtesy, which put me out of
countenance, for nobody ever does that in America, and scarcely any
one in England now, except in country-dancing. Instead of being as
described by Stixon, Mrs. Price was of a very quiet, sensible, and
respectful kind. She was rather short, but looked rather tall,
from her even walk and way of carrying her head. Her figure was
neat, and her face clear-spoken, with straight pretty eyebrows, and
calm bright eyes. I felt that I could tell her almost any thing,
and she would think before she talked of it. And in my strong want
of some woman to advise with--Betsy Bowen being very good but very
narrow, and Mrs. Hockin a mere echo of the Major until he
contradicted her, and Suan Isco, with her fine, large views, five
thousand miles out of sight just now--this was a state of things to
enhance the value of any good countenance feminine.
At any rate, I was so glad to see her that, being still ungraduated
in the steps of rank (though beginning to like a good footing
there), I ran up and took her by both hands, and fetched her out of
her grand courtesy and into a low chair. At this she was
surprised, as one quick glance showed; and she thought me, perhaps,
what is called in England "an impulsive creature." This put me
again upon my dignity, for I never have been in any way like that,
and I clearly perceived that she ought to understand a little more
distinctly my character.
It is easy to begin with this intention, but very hard indeed to
keep it up when any body of nice ways and looks is sitting with a
proper deferential power of listening, and liking one's young
ideas, which multiply and magnify themselves at each demand. So
after some general talk about the weather, the country, the house,
and so on, we came to the people of the house, or at any rate the
chief person. And I asked her a few quiet questions about Lord
Castlewood's health and habits, and any thing else she might like
to tell me. For many things had seemed to me a little strange and
out of the usual course, and on that account worthy to be spoken of
without common curiosity. Mrs. Price told me that there were many
things generally divulged and credited, which therefore lay in her
power to communicate without any derogation from her office. Being
pleased with these larger words (which I always have trouble in
pronouncing), I asked her whether there was any thing else. And
she answered yes, but unhappily of a nature to which it was
scarcely desirable to allude in my presence. I told her that this
was not satisfactory, and I might say quite the opposite; that
having "alluded" to whatever it might be, she was bound to tell me
all about it. That I had lived in very many countries, in all of
which wrong things continually went on, of which I continually
heard just in that sort of way and no more. Enough to make one
uncomfortable, but not enough to keep one instructed and vigilant
as to things that ought to be avoided. Upon this she yielded
either to my arguments or to her own dislike of unreasonable
silence, and gave me the following account of the misfortunes of
Lord Castlewood:
Herbert William Castlewood was the third son of Dean Castlewood, a
younger brother of my grandfather, and was born in the year 1806.
He was older, therefore, than my father, but still (even before my
father's birth, which provided a direct heir) there were many lives
betwixt him and the family estates. And his father, having as yet
no promotion in the Church, found it hard to bring up his children.
The eldest son got a commission in the army, and the second entered
the navy, while Herbert was placed in a bank at Bristol--not at all
the sort of life which he would have chosen. But being of a
gentle, unselfish nature, as well as a weak constitution, he put up
with his state in life, and did his best to give satisfaction.
This calm courage generally has its reward, and in the year 1842,
not very long before the death of my grandfather at Shoxford, Mr.
Herbert Castlewood, being well-connected, well-behaved, diligent,
and pleasing, obtained a partnership in the firm, which was,
perhaps, the foremost in the west of England. His two elder
brothers happened then to be at home, Major and Commander
Castlewood, each of whom had seen very hard service, and found it
still harder slavery to make both ends meet, although bachelors.
But, returning full of glory, they found one thing harder still,
and that was to extract any cash from their father, the highly
venerated Dean, who in that respect, if in no other, very closely
resembled the head of the family. Therefore these brave men
resolved to go and see their Bristol brother, to whom they were
tenderly attached, and who now must have money enough and to spare.
So they wrote to their brother to meet them on the platform,
scarcely believing that they could be there in so short a time from
London; for they never had travelled by rail before; and they set
forth in wonderful spirits, and laughed at the strange, giddy rush
of the travelling, and made bets with each other about punctual
time (for trains kept much better time while new), and, as long as
they could time it, they kept time to a second. But, sad to
relate, they wanted no chronometers when they arrived at Bristol,
both being killed at a blow, with their watches still going, and a
smile on their faces. For the train had run into a wall of Bath
stone, and several of the passengers were killed.
The sight of his two brothers carried out like this, after so many
years of not seeing them, was too much for Mr. Herbert Castlewood's
nerves, which always had been delicate. And he shivered all the
more from reproach of conscience, having made up his mind not to
lend them any money, as a practical banker was compelled to do.
And from that very moment he began to feel great pain.
Mrs. Price assured me that the doctors all agreed that nothing but
change of climate could restore Mr. Castlewood's tone and system,
and being full of art (though so simple, as she said, which she
could not entirely reconcile), he set off for Italy, and there he
stopped, with the good leave of his partners, being now valued
highly as heir to the Dean, who was known to have put a good trifle
together. And in Italy my father must have found him, as related
by Mr. Shovelin, and there received kindness and comfort in his
trouble, if trouble so deep could be comforted.
Now I wondered and eagerly yearned to know whether my father, at
such a time, and in such a state of loneliness, might not have been
led to impart to his cousin and host and protector the dark mystery
which lay at the bottom of his own conduct. Knowing how resolute
and stern he was, and doubtless then imbittered by the wreck of
love and life, I thought it more probable that he had kept silence
even toward so near a relative, especially as he had seen very
little of his cousin Herbert till he had found him thus. Moreover,
my grandfather and the Dean had spent little brotherly love on each
other, having had a life-long feud about a copy-hold furze brake of
nearly three-quarters of an acre, as Betsy remembered to have heard
her master say.
To go on, however, with what Mrs. Price was saying. She knew
scarcely any thing about my father, because she was too young at
that time to be called into the counsels of the servants' hall, for
she scarcely was thirty-five yet, as she declared, and she
certainly did not look forty. But all about the present Lord
Castlewood she knew better than any body else, perhaps, because she
had been in the service of his wife, and, indeed, her chief
attendant. Then, having spoken of her master's wife, Mrs. Price
caught herself up, and thenceforth called her only his "lady."
Mr. Herbert Castlewood, who had minded his business for so many
years, and kept himself aloof from ladies, spending all his leisure
in good literature, at this time of life and in this state of
health (for the shock he had received struck inward), fell into an
accident tenfold worse--the fatal accid |
